ASHLAND — Brandon Carpenter is ready to get to work.
The 39-year-old was victorious Tuesday night in his campaign for Ashland County commissioner, defeating challenger Sandy Bally (D) by a count of 13,999 (71.25 percent) to 5,648 (28.75 percent), according to final, unofficial vote totals from the Ashland County Board of Elections.
Although confident throughout the campaign process, Carpenter said he never discredited his challenger.
“I’m just happy to win tonight and happy we won by good numbers,” he said Tuesday night inside Ashland County Republican headquarters in downtown Ashland. “I definitely didn’t feel safe until they finally called it.”
Carpenter will replace Denny Bittle, after beating him in the primary.
This year’s election was the first time the 39-year-old sought an elected position.
The lifelong Ashland County resident said animosity can float around during the campaign process, but he’s ready to “roll his sleeves up” for the community.
“They elected me to be their voice and I’m ready to go be the voice for this community to the other board members,” Carpenter said. “Not only that, I’m ready to get to work with them so we can actually start doing some more social media type stuff — getting the voice of what’s going on in the county government out to the community.”
He said he’s also looking forward to working with fellow commissioners Michael Welch and Jim Justice to try and launch some form of evening meeting of the board in an effort to increase accessibility for community members who may be unable to attend the standard 9 a.m. meetings.
“I would like to see us get the night meetings rolling pretty early on,” he said.
Carpenter thanked constituents who entrusted him with their vote.
“I appreciate their vote and I really appreciate that they entrusted me to lead this community into the future in the next four years,” he said. “I’m excited to go represent them and I intend to represent them well.”
Bally thanks voters
Bally, 73, said she was appreciative to every voter who supported her.
A longtime volunteer at the Ashland County Board of Elections, she said the task to be elected was one she wanted to try to win.
“I just probably didn’t get out to everybody I could,” Bally said. “Maybe I couldn’t have changed as many votes as I wished. But, I enjoyed the process and I was ready to take on the position.”
Despite the defeat, Bally said she plans to stay active in county government and within the Ashland County Democratic Party.
She plans to continue attending commissioner meetings, or streaming them online, and also hopes to stay in touch with Carpenter.
“I learned a lot and I enjoyed it and I would have loved to have done it, but that’s the way it goes,” Bally said.
