Danny Joiner won 161-132 in runoff.
After months of uncertainty, residents elected former mayor Danny Joiner as the next mayor of Sturgeon in a tiebreaker election Tuesday.
Sturgeon voters greeted each other with smiles and waves as they pulled into the gravel lot in front of Boone County Fire Station No. 6 to vote for mayor for the second time this year. On his way into the polls, Albert Perkins didn’t know who was going to get his vote.
“I think either of them would do a good job,” he said.
Joiner won the election by 29 votes, after tying with incumbent Paul Heywood in the April 3 election. He got 161 votes to Heywood’s 132. In April, each received 143.
Instead of settling the tie with a coin toss, both candidates agreed to the runoff election.
Heywood said he was disappointed with the result but is sure Joiner will do a good job.
Several Sturgeon residents last week raised concerns about Heywood’s failure to pay part of his city taxes until four months after his declaration of candidacy was due. Missouri law states that a person can’t be certified for candidacy while taxes remain unpaid, but Sturgeon City Clerk Jean Richards certified Heywood and said she had never been trained to check tax records.
Resident Ron Kanatzar said that he believes media coverage of the tax issue, as well as a full-page ad placed in the Centralia Fireside Guard by a Sturgeon resident listing other concerns about Heywood “won the election” for Joiner.
Charles Dawson said he voted for Joiner because he is experienced, not because of Heywood’s tax issue.
“He’s been around this town for a long time, and he knows what the people want,” he said of Joiner.
Joiner can be sworn into office at any time.