Trio of incumbents hold on to Wilmington City Council seats

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Wilmington City Council will look the same for the next two years as it has for the last two years.

Incumbents Kevin O’Grady, Charlie Rivenbark and Earl Sheridan were all close at the top to hold on to their three seats.

Skip Watkins, the only declared Republican in this non-partisan race, finished about 400 votes behind. The other challengers Derek Bickel finished with nine percent and former New Hanover County Manager Felix Cooper got five percent.

Sheridan and Watkins were neck and neck all night for the final spot. In the end there was less than two percent between the two.

Sheridan says he won because voters are happy, but Watkins says it was a close race because voters want change.

“I think this is a group that has worked well together, and I think we can continue to work well together and try to do some things to improve things for our city,” Sheridan said.

“It was such a close race,” Watkins said. “It came down to a couple hundred votes, three or four hundred votes at the end. I think it was a movement that there was a recognition of change. Obviously, there wasn’t enough voters that wanted change.”

In his next term, Sheridan says he wants to continue to fight violence in Wilmington. Meanwhile Watkins says he’ll work on his next campaign for city council and be back in 2015.