A runoff will be held in Summit after former Councilwoman Pauline Monley came up short of winning a vacant council seat outright and JR McBeth finished second by a single vote in a special election Tuesday.
They finished atop a field of four candidates who were running to fill the year left on the term of former councilman Joe Lewis, who resigned last month after serving 19 years.
Monley finished with 105 of the 214 votes cast — just three short of the 50 percent-plus-one threshold needed to avoid the runoff.
McBeth finished in second place with 42 votes, while Amelia Johnson had 41 and Jane Lawrence had 25.
Lewis was in attendance for the vote count at town hall with the other candidates.
Monley visited with McBeth and his wife throughout most of the vote count, and they hugged before leaving.
“JR and I, we both share the same vision about how the town of Summit should be and how it should grow,” Monley said.
The first-place finish was a clear sign of redemption for Monley, who lost re-election in 2021 after her term was blemished by an arrest for firing a gun in a store parking lot. With the top four finishers elected to office, she finished in fifth in a field of six. The charges against her were dropped.
“I’m still dealing with the people out here in the community and they still have faith in me,” she said.
But Monley said she clearly still has supporters who want to see her returned to the council. She attributed the outcome to her previous experience on the council and “just hard work” to get voters to the polls.
“We have to stay focused, stay positive and we have to do this again in three more weeks,” she said.
All of the candidates said in interviews before the election that they intended to run in next year’s general election.
