Election day was a Saturday in Port Arthur and the Netherlands, with a mayoral race and two contested school board elections scheduled.
Early voting ended on Tuesday.
Voting ends at 7 pm
In Port Arthur, current Mayor Thurman Barty received 47.28 percent of the vote, followed by Floyd Baptiste (26.44 percent), Willie “Bay Lewis (17.83 percent) and Matthews Christian Jr. (8.45 percent).
With neither candidate receiving 50 percent plus one on the ballot this weekend, the two largest votes — Barty and Batiste — advance to the second round.
The election of the trustee for the Port Arthur Independent School District included current seat holder Diane Brown. The other nominees are Yadi Cardenas, Kimberly Wyckoff Johnson, Jacquery Narcisse and Nina Steele. Voters had two available seats in the PAISD election.
The two largest voters win two seats. These are Narcissus (1103) and Wyckoff-Johnson (1083).
Brown finished third by a wide margin, with 1,068 votes.
Cardenas and Stelly finished fourth and fifth, respectively.
In the independent school principals’ elections in the Netherlands, two seat holders Susan Isom and Nicholas Phillips competed against rival Daniel Cruz.
The school district announced the unofficial results of the 2022 Board of Trustees election at approximately 7:30 p.m. Saturday.
Susan Isom: total votes – 334, percentage – 39.25%
Daniel H. Cruz: total votes – 190, percentage – 22.33%
Nicholas “Nick” Phillips: Total Vote – 327 Percentage – 38.43%
The two winners with the most votes win the seats.
Even with only a handful of ballot papers on Saturday, the numbers associated with the votes cast in the early polls appear to show overwhelming support for Proposition A, which relates to ongoing efforts to deepen the Sabine-Nietzs waterway.
As of 8 p.m. Saturday, 75.54 percent of the vote cast supported the proposed measure.
Proposal A would allow the Sabine-Neches Navigation District to seek loans to help deepen the waterway, which is currently 40 percent and 60 percent funded by the area from the Army Corps of Engineers.
Deputy Principal Matthew Kaufman in the Navigation District said they are currently using six of the nine cents they got from tax revenue on the waterway project, which will increase the depth from 400 to 48 feet.
Additional funding could complete the project within six years.
Offer A does not raise taxes on the population.
