Litchfield will have a new mayor with a familiar face come January.
Ron Dingmann, who’s served as at-large City Council member for 14 years, will move into the mayor’s seat Jan. 1 after having emerged from the Nov. 8 general election as winner of a contest against fellow City Council member Darlene Kotelnicki.
Dingmann received 1,687 votes to 877 for Kotelnicki. He will succeed Keith Johnson, who opted not to run for reelection this year.
“I’m happy for the result in my race,” Dingmann said. “It feels good. I worked hard at it. My competitor put up a good challenge. I feel good about it; I’ve got a lot of support in this community.”
The mayoral campaign was a familiar one. Four years ago, Dingmann and Kotelnicki challenged Johnson for the seat. Dingmann finished second in that race, garnering 38% of the vote to Johnson’s 42%, while Kotenicki took third with 19%.
Dingmann said he was buoyed somewhat by those numbers, as they showed him receiving more votes than Kotelnicki in all five wards of the city. But he didn’t get complacent. He did a lot of door knocking throughout the campaign season, making sure to speak with as many voters as he could.
“I think the biggest issue that I heard was … and we hear this on a national level, is the economy,” Dingmann said. “We are a conservative community. From beginning to end (of the campaign) … there are still a lot of concerns about the economy, with spending extra money.”
That sentiment likely played a role in the split decision received on two referendums regarding the proposed Litchfield Area Recreation Center, or LARC, Dingmann said.
City voters approved the half-percent local option sales tax that will fund the city portion of the center, but Litchfield School District voters — a broader population including townships surrounding Litchfield — rejected a $13.5 bond that would have paid for the swimming pool and other items included in the “school portion” of the proposed LARC.
“It would have been nice for the school district (bond) to pass,” Dingmann said. “I heard more negative comments on the rec center (early in the campaign), but towards the end, it turned into more positive.”
That split vote and a decision on how to proceed with LARC now that only a portion of it is a go is one of the issues that will face the Litchfield City Council going forward.
“We have our challenges ahead of us,” Dingmann said. “We need to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
The City Council will go to work with a largely unchanged membership. Voters in three wards opted to return the incumbent to their seats during Nov. 8 voting. Those decisions included:
- Incumbent Eric Mathwig defeating challenge Holly Flemming 339-275 to retain the Ward 1 seat. Mathwig was first elected in 2018, defeating Joseph Mortimer. Flemming challenged Dingmann for the at-large council seat two years ago.
- Ward 5 saw incumbent Sara Miller emerge victorious from a rematch with Robert Powers. Miller outpolled Powers 292-111 — a similar result to 2018 when she received 69.48% of the vote to Powers’ 30.52%.
- Betty Allen ran unopposed and received 434 out of 437 votes cast in Ward 3.
Another decision for the council, of course, will be choosing a successor to Dingmann for the at-large seat. When Dingmann is installed as mayor during the City's Council's first meeting of 2023, his at-large seat will be open. With two years remaining on the term, city charter calls for the City Council to choose a replacement.
