In the end, the vote for Flathead County commissioner didn’t have the drama the campaign leading up to the election did.
Republican candidate Phil Mitchell soundly swept Democrat candidate Stacey Schnebel on Nov. 4, with 66 percent of the vote to Schnebel’s 34 percent.
Mitchell walked away from the general election with more than 20,400 votes, nearly doubling up Schnebel’s 10,400. A disparity that wide would likely allow for some breathing room for a candidate, but Mitchell was still hesitant to declare a victory even by 10:30 p.m. on the night of the election, with most of the votes counted.
“I want to thank the Flathead voters for their overwhelming support,” Mitchell said. “It is a humbling night and I am excited by what we can accomplish.”
He was, however, happy Nov. 4 marked the end of the campaign, regardless of winning.
“I’m relieved it’s over,” Mitchell said.
The race for the District 1 seat on the Flathead County Commission was one of the high-profile elections on local ballots this year. The seat, currently held by Commissioner Cal Scott, represents the north section of the county.
Mitchell soundly routed Scott in the primary election in June, taking 70 percent of the Republican vote. After the primary, Scott crossed party lines and endorsed Schnebel during a meeting of local Democrats.
While elections aren’t new for Mitchell, who previously served on the Whitefish City Council and Whitefish School Board, this one took its toll. Following Nov. 4, Mitchell said he was taking a few weeks of vacation.
“I’ll be doing that immediately and then I’ll just start trying to learn the job, going to meetings,” Mitchell said.
Those meetings will likely include chats with various department heads within the county government, he said, and more commission meetings to get up to speed on a wider range of issues.
Mitchell also said he plans to become more familiar with the Flathead County budget, which did not receive a unanimous vote from the current commission. In October, Commissioners Gary Krueger and Scott voted to approve the $102 million fiscal year 2015 budget, with Commissioner Pam Holmquist voting against it.
Holmquist said her vote was based on her discomfort with increasing taxes to save for several large capital improvement projects.
Mitchell said he is a “numbers guy,” and took special care to read the budgeting information during his tenure on the Whitefish council. He also built his career on managing large projects as a consultant for major golf course construction projects in the United States and the United Kingdom.
But Mitchell also said he wants to do his work as unobtrusively as possible; in the past few months, he said he’s felt that when he asks questions about sensitive issues, he’s been met with resistance from the rest of the commission.
These were similar to his comments after an Oct. 8 hearing at the commission’s chambers on the future of the Agency on Aging, when the commission voted that it would no longer look into privatizing the department.
Mitchell had said in previous interviews that he wouldn’t rule out privatization, but during the meeting expressed his support for the county’s decisions on the AOA issues.
After the meeting, Mitchell said he had received pushback from Krueger and Scott on the matter. In his interviews before the election, Mitchell said that he may be another Republican joining a board of Republicans, but he doesn’t plan on rubber-stamping issues, and intends on being a new voice on the board.
The campaign for commission was also marked with a lack of debates, in which Mitchell refused to participate despite Schnebel’s multiple attempts to do so.
Another issue Mitchell plans to tackle during the beginning of his six-year term includes giving input on the water compact between the state and the Confederate Salish and Kootenai Tribes, which Mitchell believes isn’t passable in its current form.
The 2015 Legislature will likely vote on the compact in its upcoming session.
For her part, Schnebel said she has no regrets about her campaign and feels that running for commission helped her gain a greater understanding of local government and the makeup of the Flathead community.
“The victory here is in providing voters with a good choice, and that’s what democracy is about,” she said. “It’s not about winning the race, it’s about giving voters two good people to choose from.”