Craig certifies uncontested city election after 9.7% turnout

The Craig City Council certified the Oct. 6 municipal election Tuesday and swore in its new members at the same meeting.

The results return Josh Bennett to the council and add Hannah Coats, while school board members Ben Page and Hans Hjort keep their seats. All four ran unopposed. "There is one candidate for each open seat," the city clerk wrote in a September report to the council.

Council members opened 13 sealed absentee ballots at the meeting and tallied them by hand: Bennett 11, Coats 12, Page 11 and Hjort 10. The official running the count said all four candidates cleared the 40% threshold the city requires to win a seat.

The city clerk's election memo counts 90 ballots cast, one of them spoiled, from 917 registered voters, and calls the 9.7% turnout "poor compared to past years." It lists 294 votes cast in 2025, when, Bennett said at the meeting, the local ballot carried other items.

The certification motion carried on a voice vote, and the new council members then took the oath of office.

Coats joins the council as longtime member Millie Schoonover leaves it. Schoonover said new members are usually seated at a regular meeting, but another official said certification had to happen within seven days of the election, and the calendar did not allow it. Bennett, calling it basically Schoonover's last meeting, thanked her on behalf of the community and gave her a gift, a vest.