Republican voters in Columbus decisively nominated Mayor Jim Lienhoop for a second term.
Lienhoop garnered 2,244 votes (70.74 percent of the vote) Tuesday in the GOP primary for the city election, easily defeating Republican challenger Glenn Petri, who received 928 votes (29.26 percent).
Because the local Democratic Party did not field a mayoral candidate, Lienhoop is currently unopposed for the fall general election.
The mayor told Republicans attending a results-watching party at Hotel Indigo in downtown Columbus that the vote totals showed residents are happy with the direction the city is moving under his administration and there was no groundswell for change.
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“Four years ago, we said the community wanted to go in a different direction, and I think what we heard tonight is that the community is happy with the direction we’re in, and to keep up the work,” said Lienhoop, flanked at the front of the banquet room by his wife, Pam, and daughter, Libby.
A few minutes later, Petri walked over to Lienhoop and offered a congratulatory handshake.
“The voters spoke. I can’t argue with that,” Petri said of the results.
Both Lienhoop and Petri expressed concern about the low vote totals in the municipal primary. Only 4,010 of 29,201 registered voters (13.73 percent) cast a ballot.
However, Petri said an increased turnout wouldn’t have changed the results.
“I don’t have a machine behind me. He has a lot of supporters that get out there and talk to people that I don’t have. He did a good job. He won the election by a landslide,” Petri said.
Petri, a vocal critic of Lienhoop’s, said he’ll probably continue to attend city government meetings, but said he has no plans to seek public office again.
Lienhoop said he’s eager to get back to work with what he considers a great team at Columbus City Hall.
“We’ve got some work to do and I want to get back to focusing on that,” Lienhoop said.
Lienhoop, 65, was elected mayor in 2015, when as a Columbus City Council member he defeated incumbent Mayor Kristen Brown in the Republican primary. He served twice on city council, in 2006 while filling in for a member called to active military duty, and then as an elected at-large member from 2012 to 2015.
The mayor has said he sought a second term because he wants to see some of his administration’s projects continue to develop or achieve completion. For example, Lienhoop said he’d like to be in office when ground is broken for the railroad overpass on the city’s west side to alleviate traffic backups caused by more trains passing through the city. Lienhoop also said he wants to continue what he describes as a changed atmosphere in city government.
Petri, 69, is a retired industrial salesman who frequently attends city government meetings. Petri has not held elected office before, but was a candidate for Columbus City Council in 2011, and Bartholomew County Council in 2018.
Petri has said he challenged Lienhoop because he didn’t like the way the city is being run, and thinks its spending is too wasteful for taxpayers. The challenger stated that some of his goals would be for the city to do a better job taking care of its roads, and selling excess property that the city owns.
The primary offered voters two distinct choices because the mayoral candidates, who would set the visions for Columbus for the next four years, hold vastly different opinions on some big, ongoing city projects.
Lienhoop led the city’s portion of a partnership with Columbus Regional Health to purchase the nearly-empty FairOaks Mall and redevelop it into a year-round sports recreation and tourism complex, with plans to use it as the future home of the city’s parks department. Petri said the mall is a terrible investment for the city, which paid $4 million of the $5.9 million purchase price, and would like to sell the property.
The mayor would like to redevelop the downtown riverfront area. An $8.6 million conceptual plan includes overlooks of the East Fork White River downtown, connections to the People Trail system, in-water recreation and removal of the low-head dam. Petri said removing the low-head dam, for safety reasons, is the only portion of the project worth pursuing.
Lienhoop was involved in the creation of a new strategic plan for downtown Columbus, called Envision Columbus. The mayor said the plan is to envision what the city needs to look like in the next 10 to 15 years, and what projects are required to achieve the vision. Notable among the focal points is a conference hotel. Petri said he supports Envision Columbus in general, but doesn’t want a lot of taxpayer money put just into downtown, because the entire city needs to be addressed.
The mayor has represented the city’s involvement in a collaborative community effort, called the Alliance for Substance Abuse Progress (ASAP), to curb substance abuse locally. ASAP began in April 2017. It involves city and county government, health leaders, law enforcement, the court system, counselors and other stakeholders. Petri said rehabilitation for drug addicts is “a medical issue” and that the hospital and nonprofits should address it because city tax money shouldn’t be used.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”How you voted” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Columbus mayor
Republican
Jim Lienhoop;2,244
Glenn Petri;928
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