City Council newcomer joins 2 incumbents in close race

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Two incumbents kept their seats for Wilmington City Council with a newcomer taking over the seat of outgoing Laura Padgett who stepped down after 20 years in office.

New Hanover County Elections Director Derek Bowens told WWAY the three precincts that everyone was waiting on to make the vote final had no votes. He said one is a totally commercial area with no voters. The other two were areas with few eligible voters after city annexation and no one cast a ballot.

The unofficial results tonight are incumbents Margaret Haynes and Neil Anderson holding on to their seats. Both said they want to focus on the growth in Wilmington.

“Our future land use plan,” Haynes said. “That is the biggest thing going forward, because that’s good for 15, 20 years and it sort of sets the direction and we need to work with what the infrastructure is going to be to sort the future land use plan.”

“We have old neighborhoods and all of a sudden you might have a new mid-rise within two blocks of there,” Anderson said. “They’re up in arms with that, but at the same time they don’t want higher taxes so it’s going to be a balancing act.”

Newcomer Paul Lawler finished in third place with 88 more votes than Deb Hays. He also said he wants to focus on growth.

“Figuring out the growth that’s coming this way, because we are going to have a lot of people moving to Wilmington and to the surrounding areas,” Lawler said.

Hays said she will move forwards in another direction.

“There are other plans for me and other things for me to do and I will not stop contributing to the city and to the citizens,” Hays said.

Some of the candidates also said rain had them worried all day, because of a smaller voter turnout.