November runoff to decide two council seats

WILMINGTON — Wilmington city elections resulted in a clear winner for the mayor’s office and for one of the three open city council seats.

We’ll be going back to the polls to decide the other two seats in a runoff next month.

Laura Padgett was the only Council candidate to win a seat in Tuesday’s election.

Susan Clarke, Pat Delair, Ronald Sparks and Kristi Tomey were the top vote-getters behind Padgett. But none of them had the necessary percentage of votes to win the seat outright.

That means a runoff election may be in the works. Several candidates said they’re ready if it happens.

Tomey said, “We feel really strong going into the next step. If we don’t have a runoff, we’re ready to serve. If we do have a runoff, we’re ready to run.”

The candidates said that with 12 people vying for just three spots it was challenging to gain the necessary majority of the votes to win. They expect that to change in a runoff with only four people competing for two spots.

Candidates have until next Tuesday to decide whether they want to pursue a runoff. If they do it will be held on November 6.