The outcome of the only contested race for Elm Springs City Council remained uncertain Thursday.
Elm Springs lies mostly in Washington County but covers a small portion of Benton County as well. Benton County officials hadn’t finished its vote count Thursday evening.
Totals provided Thursday for the council race showed Harold Douthit with 342 votes (50.3 percent) to Dorothy Blythe’s 338 votes (49.7 percent).
Both candidates are newcomers to politics.
Douthit, 62, is a cattle farmer and a retired Springdale police officer. He’s lived in Elm Springs since 1999. Blythe, 81, is retired. Her husband, Ralph Blythe, is a current council member who decided not to run for re-election this year.
Elm Springs voters also apparently approved an annexation issue to add 224 households to the city on the west side of town. There are close to 500 people in the annexed area, said Mayor Ben Wall.
The annexed area straddles the county line, so two issues were on the ballot: one to cover the Benton County side, the other to cover the Washington County side. The Washington County issue passed with 462 votes for (60 percent) and 304 votes against (40 percent). The Benton County issue passed with 434 votes for (64 percent) and 244 votes against (36 percent).
It’s not a done deal, however.
A small part of the annexation is being contested by Tontitown, which will hold an election in December to determine whether it too wants to annex the Churchill Downs subdivision, Wall said.
If Tontitown wins that election, then voters in that subdivision will decide the issue in yet another election, to be held in January, Wall said.