Jacobson, Rupp, Becker take commission seats

published on Wednesday, November 9, 2005 12:28 AM MST

By BROOK GRIFFIN, Chronicle Staff Writer

There will be three new faces on the Bozeman City Commission come January.

Kaaren Jacobson, Jeff Rupp and Sean Becker handily defeated Dawn Smith, Erik Henyon and incumbent Lee Hietala in Tuesday's commission race.

Jacobson received the most votes with 2,761, followed by Rupp with 2,592 and Becker with 2,431.

"I feel really elated," Jacobson said Tuesday night after every precinct was tallied around 10:15 p.m. "It's a nice feeling getting the most votes, I confess."

Under city law, Jacobson will be Bozeman's next mayor after Commissioner Jeff Krauss serves his two-year term, which starts in January.

Jacobson, 62, is a retired associate professor of public administration at Montana State University. During her candidacy, she has advocated better communication between the commission and the public. That message struck a chord with the people she spoke to, Jacobson said.

"I get a sense people thought I was authentic," she said.

Jacobson was the first person to file for the city commission race and has been campaigning since May.

Rupp, 55, the chief executive officer for the Human Resource Development Council, said, "I'm a little surprised (about the results) to tell you the truth. What a responsibility."

Becker, 32, a senior consultant and research director for the Bozeman -based Arts Market Inc., said the losing candidates put too much emphasis on pleasing developers and not enough on what people wanted.

"These guys came out with the developers-are-the-victim approach," Becker said.

Henyon, 35, finished with 968 votes. He said he was disappointed but not defeated.

"I'm going to continue to run," he said. "I wish I had done a little better at getting my message out to folks."

Henyon said he believes Bozeman will be in trouble with this new commission. "In two years people will be looking for jobs," he said.

Hietala, 66, lost his bid for a second term, coming in with 1,069 votes. He said Tuesday night he is also wary of what direction the new commissioners will take the city.

Mayor Andrew Cetraro and Commissioner Marcia Youngman opted not to run for re-election.

Smith, 37, had 1,034 votes. She could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

There were 10,874 total votes in the Bozeman general election, less than half the number of registered voters in the city.

Gallatin County Clerk and Recorder Shelley Vance did not have reports on voter turnout available Tuesday night, but said this election looked like it had "really low turnout" compared to past races.

Brook Griffin is at bgriffin@dailychronicle.com

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