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Retired USU professor wins mayoral race against incumbent

Lis Stewart, news editor

Logan will have a new mayor come January.

Former USU economics professor Craig Petersen defeated incumbent Mayor Randy Watts in Tuesday’s election with 2,504 votes to Watts’ 2,100.

Watts, who was running for a third term, said he plans to keep busy and is proud of the financial condition he leaves the city in.

“I wish Craig the best, and what I hand him is a healthy city,” Watts said.

Petersen retired from 39 years working at USU last spring. In addition to teaching, he was a member of the university administration for 16 years, serving as vice provost, interim provost and chief of staff to USU’s president.

He has served on the Cache County Council since 1994 and will step down from his seat when he takes the mayorship in January.

Plans for his term of office include a set of main points Petersen outlined throughout his campaign.

“I want to work on making Logan a more citizen and business-friendly city,” he said. “I want to work on core neighborhoods. I want to work on increasing efficiency in Logan government. I want to work on making sure that Logan city employees feel rewarded and supported and valued in the workplace, even more than they are now.”

Having recently retired from teaching, Petersen is still recognized by many students on campus.

Eryn Schmidt, a statistics major who took a macroeconomics class from Petersen in fall 2012, said she remembers him being a great teacher who was prepared for each class.

“He definitely knows what he’s talking about,” she said. “He helps you understand it better and apply it.”

Schmidt also said she thinks Petersen will do well as Logan’s mayor.

“I think he’ll really care about everyone in Logan, like he did in his class,” she said.

The race for Municipal Council was an easy one for incumbent councilwoman Holly Daines, who gained a lead early in the evening and easily took her seat with 3,408 votes. Daines, who is finishing her first term and chairs the council, said she was pleased with the chance to continue working for Logan.

The remaining two candidates, Gene Needham Sr. and Jess Bradfield, battled all night for the other open council seat. The number of votes for both candidates were fairly close until the end of the night, when Needham gained a lead and won the other seat. Needham took 2,540 votes, while Bradfield had 2,361.

There were two official write-ins for council. A write-in is eligible to win only if he or she is registered as one. Richard West, the write-in for mayor, received 88 votes, and Steve G. Stokes, the write-in for council, received 178.

The number of votes mentioned are not official results because the county still has to validate 168 provisional ballots. The official results should be available sometime next week on loganutah.org, according to Logan Recorder Teresa Harris.

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