Carson City to choose mayor, supervisors

Election fervor begins to heat up today with the first presidential caucus in Iowa. But Carson's senior-most election official doesn't expect much action in Carson City until after the September primary.

"Locally, it's a real small ballot," Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover said.

Carson voters this year will choose a mayor, two supervisors in wards II and IV and school board representatives for districts 2, 5 and 7.

Glover said Mayor Ray Masayko can run again. The term limit for mayor is 12 years.

Supervisor openings are for seats now held by Shelly Aldean and Richard Staub. Supervisors serve four years. Aldean was appointed in 2003 to fill the seat left vacant when Jon Plank died suddenly in midterm. She represents northeast Carson.

Staub is serving his first term and represents South Carson City.

Carson City's school board will fill three seats this year. John McKenna represents District 5, Joanna Wilson represents District 7, and Doug Ponn represents District 2.

Glover said the mayor's race and the assembly race may liven things up for the primary, but that won't be known for certain until filing opens May 3. Filing closes May 14.

Though the local ballot is small, Glover expects an 86 percent turnout for the general election.

Glover said he bases his prediction on history, but said Carson's voters are a stable bunch, and that the same number of people have cast votes for the past decade.

"It's scary. The number of people voting hasn't changed in 10 years," he said. "It's not a good sign. The city is growing at 3 percent, but the number of people voting isn't going up. We just are not getting people to turn out to vote."