By Craig Marx, Editor

The people of Antigo and Langlade County have spoken, and with the ballots tallied for the time being, a number of assumptions can now be verified.

Bill Brandt, incumbent mayor of the City of Antigo, will retain his office after defeating Doug Nonnenmacher in the 2017 mayoral race. As of late morning on Wednesday, Brandt had claimed 820 votes to Nonnenmacher’s 331 tallies, winning the position by a 71% to 29% margin.

“It’s nice to know that people feel you’re doing the right thing and taking the city in the right direction,” Mayor Brandt on Wednesday. “We’ve shown some great strides in economic development in the past few years. It’s great to know that people are realizing that we’re continuing to make Antigo a great place to work and raise a family.”

In the highly-contested and extremely close race for four open school board positions – three full-term positions and one, two-year abridged interim seat – Dr. Noel Deep was the front runner of the five candidates with 2,209 votes at a 24% share of the district voting.

John Schroeder received 2,142 votes (23%) while Danny Pyeatt secured 1,845 votes and the third full-term seat. Dr. Patrick McKenna received 1,736 votes, qualifying him for a two-year term on the board, while Roy Dieck had 1,201 votes, falling short of securing a position with 13% of the voting percentage.

On the issue of the school board personnel referendum, requesting the reduction of board members from nine to five persons, the community overwhelmingly voted against the proposal with 1,974 nays to 885 votes in support.

The local Board of Canvassers will verify the official results of the election on April 11, making sure that all precincts were reported accurately in the tallying process.

For the school board-related issues, 9,133 people voted for board candidates in their entirety, including 3,916 city voters and 5,217 rural votes. For the referendum issue, 2,859 total votes were reported, including 1,147 city voters and another 1,712 in the rural areas.

Dr. Deep received his biggest in town support in the Seventh Ward (198 votes) and rurally in the towns of Antigo (224) and Rolling (163). Schroeder also did his best in-town in the Seventh Ward, receiving 196 votes, while the also performing well in the Town of Antigo (217) and the Town of Rolling (174).

Pyeatt claimed 164 votes in Seventh Ward and 93 in the Second Ward, while receiving 172 votes in the Town of Antigo, 154 in Rolling, and another 124 in Polar. Dr. McKenna had 181 Seventh Ward votes and 96 in the Second Ward, while receiving 166 votes in the Town of Antigo and 126 in Rolling. Dieck did best in the Seventh and Ninth Wards, where he received 53 votes each, and recorded 116 Town of Antigo votes and another 108 in the Town of Norwood.

The referendum received the most city support (“yes” votes) in the Seventh Ward with 41 votes and rurally in the Town of Norwood with 81 voters. The largest group of in-town naysayers also came from the Seventh Ward at 185 voters (incidentally, the largest reporting city ward with 226 total referendum voters) and in the rural Town of Antigo area with 217 votes.