Garrett Park residents elect new mayor

Keller received 301 votes and incumbent Carolyn Shawaker received 148.

Shawaker, who has served as mayor since 2004, said she may continue to stay involved with town affairs and issues. ‘‘I don’t know ... we’ll see what comes along,” she said. ‘‘I still like living in Garrett Park.”

Council members Hans Wegner and Beth Irons were re-elected to their uncontested seats. The mayor and council members serve unpaid, staggered two-year terms. Keller, 64, was sworn in after the votes were tallied around 10:30 p.m. Monday.

‘‘There are people that are saying record turnout. It was 57 percent which is I think pretty darn good,” Pratt said. ‘‘But I think ‘near-record’ is how you would say it. Maybe there was some day when there were 50 registered voters and 48 turned out.”

He said the fact that this was the first contested mayoral election in at least a decade could have been responsible for the surge in voter turnout.

Last year, 29 percent of the voters participated in a contested council election. In 2004, Shawaker received 140 uncontested votes for her first term and 199 in 2006.

Glenda Ingham, a former town clerk of 20 years, said contested elections naturally attract more voters than uncontested ones, and after two uncontested elections, she said residents may have felt it was time for a change.

‘‘I was there for many years and administered the elections and it is an excellent turnout,” she said. ‘‘I can’t remember what all the numbers were over the years. I do know that 57 percent is extraordinarily good.”

Shawaker, 67, served two consecutive terms. In 111 years of the town, only two mayors continued on to a third consecutive term, according to Keller.

‘‘I don’t know about the inner politics ... but the incumbent mayor had run for two two-year terms and we have that precedent in town,” Ingham said. ‘‘The incumbent mayor had worked hard and done a lot of things for the town, I want to be clear on that. But I think people may have felt it was just time for a change.”

Keller, a former council member for 10 years who has served on three town committees in the past four years, said he hoped to help the council work effectively in the coming years and continue to implement ongoing repairs to town roads and sidewalks.

‘‘We may be going into a period of fiscal uncertainty and or austerity,” he said. ‘‘We need to work smarter and we can certainly work more efficiently.”

Work on the Cambria Park storm water management and construction on the sidewalk is expected to finish soon and Keller said he looks forward to rededicating the park.

He said he looked forward to expanding on the uses and impact of the town’s new Web site and continuing to get volunteers ‘‘involved in projects and the fun stuff, and let the operational side work on its own.”

‘‘I think it was a good race and that’s why there was the level of interest reflected in the voter turnout,” Keller said.