Jim Gerlt Wins District 4 City Council Seat in Runoff Election
By: Alison Morris
Updated: June 24, 2012
Pastor and newly elected city councilman Jim Gerlt said he's happy the campaigning is over.
"It's been a lot of hard work, no question about that," Gerlt said. "Anyone who's looking at doing this needs to prepare themselves to basically put their lives on hold for a while."
The runoff between Gerlt and Beane was the result of neither candidate getting a majority vote in the May 12th city primary election.
"The runoff has been a little more dicey I guess because right in the middle of our runoff was the primary election," Gerlt said.
Gerlt said he's ready to jump right in to his new role with decades of experience of another kind on his side.
"40 years of leadership," Gerlt said. "For over forty years I've been a pastor and there's a lot of correlation between what you do leading a church and in leading city government."
We spoke with Beane earlier today.
The incumbent said that he didn't really want to run to begin with and won't be running again.
"Absolutely not," Beane said. "As a matter of fact, I had not planned to run this time but some well meaning friends and family members asked me to run again and so I decided I would serve 4 more years if the voters want me."
He's not too bummed about the loss.
"But if they do not want me tonight, they're likely to sentence me to a life of playing golf and hunting and fishing and I'm not sure I'll be able to take it. It's going to be just a horrible fate."
Alison Morris, KLBK news.
