Edgewater, FL - Two candidates are now headed to a runoff in the race for an open city council seat.
It was back on January 3rd that Amy Vogt, one of the Edgewater City Council members that voted out the city manager, resigned following two months of turmoil in the council.
Just a few days later (January 7th), the city of Edgewater announced that they would hold a special election to fill her seat.
Today (February 19th) began the first step of finding out who voters wanted to fill that seat, as two of the three candidates now move on to a runoff election, set for April 2nd.
Those candidates included Kimberly Klein-Yaney, owner of the Klein-Yaney Media marketing agency, Jennifer Parker, photographer and small business owner and Former Edgewater councilwoman Gigi Bennington, who has 30-years experience at Edgewater City Hall.
If one of those candidates were to receive more than 50% of the vote, they automatically won the spot. That, however, won't be the case, following the results of tonight's primary.
Following all five precincts reporting in to VolusiaElections.org, it was clear that it wouldn't have been an open and close election with one clear winner.
Klein-Yaney ended up securing almost 43% of the vote with Parker coming in close at 38%, meaning both of them would be headed to the runoff in April 2nd.
"I don't think any of us knew what to expect going into this," said Parker. "A special election is really such a wildcard election, not a lot of people are motivated enough to come out. Honestly, the three of us didn't know what was going to happen."
Klein-Yaney's plans include working on water issues in Edgewater as well as bringing smart and managed growth to foster economic development in the community.
Another plan of her's includes making the city government more transparent.
"We've lost a lot of that since the October 26th meeting," said Klein-Yaney, referring to the meeting where City Manager Tracey Barlow was voted out.
If Parker were to take the seat, she would take a look at the city's budget and see what the city could do to "court" small businesses to open up on US-1 and Park Avenue. Parker also wants to see if Edgewater could also open up a new downtown district.
But, one the most important thing in Parker's eyes is to create a timeline and figure out what the city needs now, "not 40 years from now." And according to her one of those changes is the infrastructure of the city.
"We need some infrastructure help," said Parker. "They need to make sure our impact fees our increased, so we can actually afford the housing to come in, so we have the roads in place, so we have the schools in place and so we have the first responders in place."
Whoever takes the seat will hold the position until its term is up two years from now. Klein-Yaney says that if she wins she also plans on running for mayor in 2020, and Parker says even if she doesn't win, residents can expect to see her run again in the next election.
