Dobbs Wins Against Michalski for Village Board

Three incumbents and one new board member will serve the Village of Caledonia.

Jim Dobbs won against Duane Michalski for the Village Trustee No. 5 spot on the Village Board. Dobbs earned 3,840 votes to Michalski’s 2,676.

Despite a last minute write-in campaign by David Gottardo and Margo Tepley, Village Trustee no. 1, Kathy Burton, and Village Trustee no. 3, Kevin Wanggaard, will remain on the Village Board. Ron Coutts, the Village President, was also re-elected, but he ran unopposed.

About 38 percent of the 20,176 registered voters casted a ballot in this election. That's about twice the usual amount compared to the spring election held last year.

Here's what the candidates had to say:

Jim Dobbs

I was getting nervous the last few days before the election and I really had no clue on how this would end up. I had hoped to get my message out there and have people get to know me. Moving forward, I’ll report to Ron and see what he has in store for me. I am hoping that the difference between us was my experience that I worked with the government before and I worked hard.

Kevin Wanggaard:

I will continue serving my constituents for the Village of Caledonia as I have been for the last eight years, and that means the whole village. And I want to thank everyone for voting and being involved in the process.

What's next? We have to move ahead for the betterment of the village as a whole, and stabilize and maintain our tax base by being more efficient with our services.

Ron Coutts:

We need to look at development. We need some commercial growth and we have to look at any commercial proposals that may come in front of us. We need to sit down with the board and I think we’ve got some good discussion coming up.  I’m looking forward to working with the new board member and the re-elected board members as well. I feel that with this budget and with the cuts coming down from Madison we’re going to have to put our nose to the grindstone and come up with a better solution.

Kathy Burton:

I think our priorities are: figuring out a way to balance the budget this year, and working to bring in the commercial development that we need to grow our tax base and stabilize our budget.

Duane Michalski:

I’d like to say congratulations to Jim and I wish him well. I hope he will do a good job in bringing commercial and industrial development in Caledonia.