Mayoral Candidates reflect on primary vote

Craig Petersen is a step closer to becoming the next mayor of Logan now that he has placed first in Tuesday’s primary election. Petersen received 943 votes compared with Incumbent Mayor Randy Watts’ 715.

Petersen, a long-time member of the Cache County Council, said he’s pleased about the primary but knows he still has much to do.

“All this does fundamentally is guarantee me a ticket to the main event,” Petersen said. “But still, winning the primary was extremely satisfying and I appreciate the people that helped me. I appreciate especially the people that supported me. It’s hard to speculate on what the reasons were, but I suspect that people looked at my qualifications. I think I’ve done some things that would allow me to hit the ground running as a mayor.”

It will be almost three months before Watts will know if he will get to serve a third four-year term, and both candidates said they will be campaigning hard between now and the November election.

Watts said he needs to get James Olson’s votes and then some.

“We need 11-13 percent turnout, which is still miserable, but that would really help, to get a better turnout,” Watts said. “So we get a little better feel for the citizens. In one way it’s a little bit discouraging but we’ll work through it and I’ll see if I can get re-elected.”

Both candidates plan to take a short break for the rest of the month.

Olson, who was eliminated from the race after receiving 475 votes, said he feels great when he looks at the numbers.

“You know 400-plus people put their faith in James Olson, and a guy they didn’t know five years ago, they decided to put an ‘x’ next to his name,” Olson said. “I just feel like a really great honor that people would pick me over some of these other gentlemen that I was going against. I tell people I was going against 130 years worth of name recognition in this town compared to the five that I’ve had here on a permanent basis.”

Olson said it has all been worth it, he made some neat friends and he feels some of his ideas will be adopted by the city.

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