Con­grat­u­la­tions to Terry Van Akkeren, you’re the first guy in the his­tory of She­boy­gan to lose the may­oral race twice in a four year time span while simul­ta­ne­ously hav­ing a year as mayor mixed in there for good measure.

It likely will never hap­pen again.

Mike Van­der­steen defeated incum­bent Terry Van Akkeren Tues­day, 4,059 to 3,862, accord­ing to unof­fi­cial elec­tion results.

Van Akkeren was seek­ing a full four-year term, hav­ing emerged from an eight-way pri­mary race in Jan­u­ary 2012 and then defeat­ing then-Mayor Bob Ryan a month later to serve out the last year of Ryan’s term.

Van­der­steen, who man­ages DuBois For­mal­wear, has a long polit­i­cal resume as well, hav­ing served as a She­boy­gan County Board super­vi­sor since 1998, includ­ing four years as County Board chair­man from 2008 until April 2012, which is the max­i­mum tenure allowed under board rules.. He also served two terms as a She­boy­gan alder­man in the 1990s.

This was Vandersteen’s sec­ond run for mayor, fol­low­ing an unsuc­cess­ful bid for the posi­tion in 1997.

In other She­boy­gan polit­i­cal news, local men­ace to him­self and future Bad­ger pol­i­tics (He’s all yours lib­er­als!), Asher Heimer­mann lost his bid for the city’s 6th alder­manic district.

He fin­ished third, behind a write-in campaign.

Mark Her­mann led a three-way race for Sixth dis­trict alder­man, with a total of 487 votes. Chal­lenger Asher Heimer­mann was third with 68 votes. There were 174 write-in votes, most of those pre­sum­ably going to incum­bent Bill Wange­mann, who was run­ning as a write-in can­di­date after pre­vi­ously stat­ing he wouldn’t seek re-election.

At the rate Heimermann’s going he’ll be the Demo­c­ra­tic ver­sion of Mark Block by the time he’s 30.  That’s gen­er­ally not a good thing to be com­pared to.

This makes sense.  Lake Michi­gan Car­ferry has been seen as stalling for so long by envi­ron­men­tal­ists that the EPA has pretty much given them their final warning.

Also, it pretty much shows that attempts to make the boat a his­tor­i­cal land­mark aren’t going to make a hill of beans to a bunch of DC bureau­crats who think the com­pany should have made the switch from coal to nat­ural gas (or diesel) years ago.

In its 60th anniver­sary year, the SS Bad­ger car ferry will set sail again, accord­ing to a news release from Lake Michi­gan Carferry.

The owner of the Bad­ger has signed a con­sent decree agree­ment with the Depart­ment of Jus­tice and EPA that will require the SS Bad­ger to end the ash dis­charge within two years.

“Manitowoc’s long mar­itime his­tory has been an impor­tant part of our iden­tity for many years, and the Bad­ger is a very vis­i­ble reminder that the tra­di­tion con­tin­ues,” said Man­i­towoc Mayor Justin Nick­els. “The car ferry is a big part of our tourism indus­try and is a valu­able trans­porta­tion alter­na­tive for our local man­u­fac­tures. We con­grat­u­late Lake Michi­gan Car­ferry and the EPA for work­ing together to ensure the con­tin­u­a­tion of this impor­tant trans­porta­tion asset for Wis­con­sin and Michigan.”

The agree­ment is the prod­uct of a lengthy process of work­ing with the EPA to find the best solu­tion, and includes the instal­la­tion of a sophis­ti­cated ash reten­tion sys­tem. The con­sent decree will be lodged in fed­eral court in Grand Rapids by the Depart­ment of Jus­tice. The process includes a 30-day writ­ten pub­lic com­ment period prior to final approval by the court.

“The res­o­lu­tion of this issue has taken far longer than we had hoped, but the end result has been worth the effort,” said Bob Man­glitz, pres­i­dent and CEO of Lake Michi­gan Car­ferry, in a news release. “This agree­ment will save the jobs of our 200 plus employ­ees as well as many other jobs in the states of Michi­gan and Wis­con­sin. We appre­ci­ate the sup­port we have received from our elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives in Michi­gan and Wis­con­sin and the encour­age­ment of the thou­sands of peo­ple who have sup­ported our efforts to keep the Bad­ger sailing.”

The Bad­ger takes close to 200 trips across the lake annu­ally, adding close to or sur­pass­ing $35 mil­lion to the Man­i­towoc and Lud­ing­ton economies.  The loss of the car­ferry would have been a major blow to the Lakeshore economy.

Now here’s hop­ing they use the extra time they’ve been given to accom­plish what they need to and ensure the boat oper­ates every Sum­mer on schedule.

Good news, with an expla­na­tion of the Man­i­towoc num­bers to follow.

The increase statewide in prop­erty taxes this past year was just 0.2 per­cent, the small­est increase since 1997, when the total tax levy dropped 9 per­cent due to an influx of $1 bil­lion in state funds to buy down school taxes, a recent Wis­con­sin Tax­pay­ers Alliance analy­sis showed.

The City of She­boy­gan did even bet­ter than the state aver­age, with a levy of $2,184,240 in 2011–2012, up just one dol­lar from the pre­vi­ous year. Most com­mu­ni­ties in She­boy­gan County could say the same or came close.

She­boy­gan County com­mu­ni­ties whose levies rose included Elkhart Lake (up $31,751), Vil­lage of Kohler (up $70,257) and Vil­lage of Oost­burg (up $90,000).

The Vil­lage of Cedar Grove’s levy dropped more than $14,000 to $912,396.

For the past 11 years, from 2000 through 2011, net prop­erty taxes rose an aver­age of 4.8 per­cent each year, the WTA reported in the most recent edi­tion of its pub­li­ca­tion, “The Wis­con­sin Taxpayer.”

Of the 50 largest munic­i­pal­i­ties, levies were up the most in Mid­dle­ton (11.5%), Man­i­towoc (11.0%), Stevens Point (8.1%), Mount Pleas­ant (6.4%), and Water­town (4.3%), the group’s analy­sis showed. Prop­erty taxes decreased the most in West Bend (-4.6%), Franklin (-2.4%), and Mequon (-0.3%).

Manitowoc’s levy jumped because the city is try­ing to bail itself out of years of bond­ing for var­i­ous projects dur­ing the Kevin Craw­ford years.  This has led the city into a fis­cal abyss that will take much of the next decade to get out of.  It would have hap­pened with or with­out Act 10.

It won’t be much fun.

Seri­ously, I do.

From this morning’s “Politico Play­book” email:

BEST GET: Steps away from Willie Geist’s “Way Too Early” set, Carl Toe­pel, a cheese­head attend­ing his 10th con­ven­tion, handed Playbook’s chief assis­tant a ‘Mit­twurst Lover for Rom­ney’ but­ton. Turns out Mit­twurst is Ger­man for “sum­mer sausage,” a pop­u­lar meat to pair with cheese and crackers.

Dr. Toe­pel — he’s a retired ele­men­tary school prin­ci­pal and admin­is­tra­tor from She­boy­gan — has one of the most impres­sive col­lec­tions of cam­paign swag I have ever seen.  Think of a cam­paign, Repub­li­can or Demo­c­rat (mostly Repub­li­can) and chances are Carl has some­thing — a but­ton, a bumper sticker, a pin — from it.  Carl also makes his own cam­paign but­tons, which he hands out to any will­ing to take one.

He’s a true stu­dent of his­tory, a great guy to share a laugh with, and in 2006 was one of my county vol­un­teers when I was with the Green Campaign.

Glad to see him get a moment in the national press while down in Tampa.

Sadly, all I can think of given its finan­cial sit­u­a­tion is when does the city of Man­i­towoc fol­low suit?  The city is weighed down by a moun­tain of debt from years of bond­ing it can’t afford.

Is this that city’s future?

San Bernardino on Tues­day became the third Cal­i­for­nia city in less than a month to seek bank­ruptcy pro­tec­tion, with offi­cials say­ing the finan­cial sit­u­a­tion had become so dire that it could not cover pay­roll through the summer.

The unex­pected vote came at the sug­ges­tion of the interim city man­ager, who said the city faces a

$46-million deficit and depleted coffers.

“We have an imme­di­ate cash flow issue,” Andrea Miller told the mayor and seven-member City Council.

Mayor Patrick Mor­ris called the deci­sion, passed on a 4–2 vote, a “stain” on the city. But he said the only other option was “dra­con­ian cuts” to all city ser­vices, includ­ing the police and fire departments.

“It means the bills will be paid,” said a dejected Mor­ris, who is not a vot­ing mem­ber of the council.

The city’s fis­cal cri­sis has been years in the mak­ing, com­pounded by the nation’s crush­ing reces­sion and exac­er­bated by esca­lat­ing pen­sion costs, lucra­tive labor agree­ments, Sacramento’s raid on rede­vel­op­ment funds and a city reserve that is tapped out, offi­cials said.

Miller told the coun­cil that the city faced major deficits for the next five years.

The deficits remain even after the city nego­ti­ated $10 mil­lion in con­ces­sions from employ­ees and slashed the work­force 20% over the last four years.

I wish I were kid­ding about the Man­i­towoc thing.  I really am.

Just pass­ing along a heads-up to those in the greater Lakeshore area that Amer­i­cans for Pros­per­ity — Wis­con­sin will be mak­ing a stop with their rally bus on next Wednes­day May 30 in the greater She­boy­gan area as part of its statewide tour prior to the recall elec­tion on June 5th.

2:00 PM
She­boy­gan, WI
Jaycee Quarry View Cen­ter
3401 Calumet Ave
She­boy­gan, WI
Click here for more infor­ma­tion & to register

Set to be speak­ing are Tony Katz of Blog Talk Radio and Breitbart.com as well as local state Sen­a­tor Joe Leibham.

I post with­out com­ment, will at the end.

An 18-year-old She­boy­gan South High School stu­dentin the midst of his sec­ond polit­i­cal cam­paign before grad­u­a­tion said today that he’s sus­pend­ing his cam­paign for State Assem­bly due to “unfore­seen circumstances.”

Asher Heimer­mann, who was run­ning as a Demo­c­rat in 26th Assem­bly Dis­trict race against Repub­li­can incum­bent Mike End­s­ley, said more than 75 peo­ple con­tributed to his cam­paign, donat­ing more than $3,000, which he used to buy TV ads.

“This has been one of the hard­est deci­sions I have ever had to make,” Heimer­mann said in an email sent to his supporters.

Heimer­mann launched his Assem­bly cam­paign back in Jan­u­ary, about a week after his bid for mayor ended fol­low­ing a last place fin­ish among eight can­di­dates run­ning in the Jan. 17 may­oral recall primary.

Though it didn’t help him at the polls, Heimermann’s may­oral cam­paign attracted media atten­tion from NBC’s “Today” show, var­i­ous Inter­net web­sites and a Chicago radio sta­tion after the teen engaged in a pub­lic spat with for­mer mayor Bob Ryan over duel­ing web­sites and Twit­ter accounts.

Heimermann’s cam­paign sus­pen­sion leaves County Board Super­vi­sor Devin LeMahieu of Oost­burg, a Repub­li­can, as the only other can­di­date to chal­lenge End­s­ley for the seat.

This leaves the Ass­Dems with­out a can­di­date in a seat in which redis­trict­ing has made a hard climb for Democ­rats to reclaim.   The newly drawn 26th Assem­bly Dis­trict was actu­ally one of the most vocal com­plaints lib­er­als had in the court challenge.

(It’s believed they called it “rad­i­cally recon­fig­ured” or some such word­ing in their brief…)

Any­way, Dems in the Lakeshore have plenty of time to find a real can­di­date for the fall.  Big ques­tion at the moment is does Heimer­mann return any con­tri­bu­tions from those who ask for their money back.   His press release doesn’t men­tion if he will or not.

First results in.

There’s a bit of con­fu­sion here. On the She­boy­gan Press’ Twit­ter account they have the same num­bers, but have Ryan with the lead of 550 votes. Hope­fully, it will get sorted out shortly.

UPDATE — Yeah, they admit the mis­take.  It’s TVA cur­rently with the lead.

UPDATE II — Lat­est numbers.

Race	Can­di­date	Votes	Per­cent­age	% report­ing
SHEBOYGAN — MAYOR
	Terry Van Akkeren	1473	53	23
	Bob Ryan	1269	45	23
	Write-in	34	1	23

UPDATE III — More numbers.

Race	Can­di­date	Votes	Per­cent­age	% report­ing
SHEBOYGAN — MAYOR
	Terry Van Akkeren	2316	54	38
	Bob Ryan	1929	45	38
	Write-in	50	1	38

Haven’t seen which wards these are, but unless Ryan finds votes soon, I’m prob­a­bly gonna call it for Van Akkeren once they hit 50 or 55% in.

UPDATE IV — Just got a look at the raw ward num­bers com­ing in from the She­boy­gan City Clerk’s office.  Ryan has yet to win a sin­gle ward in the city and has lost in wards which typ­i­cally go to more con­ser­v­a­tive, pro-business can­di­dates in the past.

TVA has this thing all but final.

UPDATE V — Yeah, it’s over.  Ryan’s been recalled.

Race	Can­di­date	Votes	Per­cent­age	% report­ing
SHEBOYGAN — MAYOR
	Terry Van Akkeren	3004	54	58
	Bob Ryan	2545	45	58
	Write-in	58	1	58

UPDATE V — Ryan has finally won a ward.  The city’s 15th, by just 3 votes accord­ing to the City Clerk’s office.

There are two wards left to report.

Gadfly’s a good word.

It’s a lot less to say than “annoy­ing, lit­tle punk.”

Youth­ful gad­fly and erst­while may­oral can­di­date Asher Heimer­mann said today he will be a can­di­date for the 26th Assem­bly Dis­trict against incum­bent Rep. Mike Endsley.

Heimer­mann, 18, a South High School senior, fin­ished a dis­tant last among eight can­di­dates in the Jan. 17 may­oral recall pri­mary with 38 votes.

“We need an inde­pen­dent voice in Madi­son who will stand up for the 26th Dis­trict,” Heimer­mann declared on his fundrais­ing web­site Mon­day. He claims he has raised $165 so far for the race and has set a goal of $1,000.

Even though he gar­nered the fewest votes in last week’s pri­mary, Heimermann’s was per­haps the most enter­tain­ing can­di­dacy for mayor. He reg­u­larly sparred with Mayor Bob Ryan over duel­ing web­sites and Twit­ter accounts and even drew atten­tion from NBC’s “Today” show, var­i­ous Inter­net web­sites and a Chicago radio station.

Ryan and for­mer state Rep. Terry Van Akkeren were the top two vote-getters in the pri­mary and will face off on Feb. 21.

Heimer­mann said he will run as a Demo­c­rat in the Novem­ber Assem­bly contest.

Just a tip to young Asher: Expect to have a primary. 

There’s no one in Madi­son insane enough to will­ingly let Heimer­mann rep­re­sent the Democ­rats in the Assem­bly in what will be a tar­geted seat for the AssDems.

If you want to amuse your­self, check out the com­ments thread at the She­boy­gan Press.

You can do what I’m doing, check­ing in from time to time with the City of She­boy­gan Clerk’s office.  Their web­site is here.

A run-off is avoided if any one can­di­dates walks away with 50% of the vote in today’s eight-way primary.

UPDATES to follow…

8:00 PM — Polls have offi­cially closed in Sheboygan.

8:06 PM — No totals in yet.

8:27 PM — Still noth­ing.  I’d freak, but appar­ently no other media is report­ing totals either at this moment.

8:46 PM — And now the She­boy­gan City Clerk’s web­site is load­ing at a snail’s pace.

8:55 PM — From the She­boy­gan Press

9:05 PM — The She­boy­gan City Clerk’s web­site is offi­cially a waste.  More from the She­boy­gan Press

This is 9% of the city in accord­ing to their report­ing.  That’s 5 wards.

9:12 PM — 12.5% of wards (7 wards) reporting.

Won­der if Asher will hit triple digits…

9:25 PM –17% report­ing.  11 city wards in.

9:35 PM — 24% report­ing, 15 city wards in.

As you can see, the She­boy­gan Press is now report­ing write-in votes.

9:45 PM — 28% report­ing. 21 city wards in.

Looks more and more like a Ryan / TVA re-match.

10:05 PM — 30% report­ing.  She­boy­gan Press is call­ing the Ryan / TVA re-match as well.

10:15 PM — Last update, I’m off to bed.

35% report­ing.

Final UPDATE — Appar­ently the per­cent­age I was post­ing last night was the turnout level. The last num­bers are the entire election.