Vandersteen Unseats Van Akkeren
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.
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