Rabal to be Centerton city attorney
Posted on Sunday, November 9, 2008
CENTERTON — Brian Rabal will be the first elected Centerton city attorney, Mayor Bobbie Griffith said.
Since the election, Griffith has talked with officials at the Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office to find out how to fill the Centerton city attorney post.
Candidate Lisa Kelly was moving out of Centerton this week and said she would not be eligible to serve as the firstever elected city attorney. She had tried to have her name removed from the ballot earlier this year, when she knew she would be leaving Centerton, but was advised then by the Benton County Clerk’s Office that it was too late to have her name removed from the ballot.
Election Day was Tuesday. According to final, but still uncertified, results on the Benton County Web site, 1, 973 votes were cast in the city-attorney race. Kelley got 864 votes, or 43. 79 percent; Rabal got 570 votes, or 28. 89 percent; and Shelly A. Ball got 539 votes, or 27. 32 percent.
Under the circumstances, Rabal will be city attorney. But it took a while to determine that because of a misunderstanding with the Secretary of State’s Office, Griffith said Friday.
“ No one bothered to tell (the Arkansas Secretary of State’s ) Office that (Kelley ) did not have a majority. That’s why I got so many conflicting recommendations. And then when I tried to tell them that there was no majority, they were thinking of what people had already called them about, so it didn’t make sense to them, ” Griffith said.
When no candidate receives a majority, state statute 75106 applies, said Mike Humphries, counsel for the Arkansas Secretary of State’s Office.
“‘ If one of the two candidates who received the highest number of votes for an office but not a majority in the general election withdraws prior to certification of the result of the general election, the remaining candidate to receive the most votes at the general election shall be declared elected to the office, and there shall be no general election runoff, ’” said Humphries, reading the statute.
If any of the candidates had received a majority on Tuesday, the election would be certified, and a different statute would have applied, Humphries said.
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