June 15, 2010 — The local elections incorporated in the California State Primary on Tuesday, June 8 are over and except for the Board of Supervisors certifying the ballots, the people of Susanville and Lassen County have chosen some new leaders to take us into to the second decade of the 21st Century.

We congratulate Cheryl McDonald on winning her first term to the Susanville City Council and Rod DeBoer on his win and return to the City Council. At noon today, June 15, both are scheduled to be sworn in and as per standard procedure, the council will choose a new mayor and mayor pro tem.

McDonald and DeBoer join councilmembers Lino Callegari, Joe Franco and Doug Sayers. They will be faced with some choices such as natural gas refinancing and how to make ends meet on a dwindling budget as the state continues to face an economic crisis that state legislators seem hesitant to address. Fortunately, they have a fine city staff to help guide them as they learn the ends and outs of city government.

Countywide, voters chose a new supervisor to represent District 3. Larry Wosick, a local businessman replaces Lloyd Keefer. Voters also choice Assistant Sheriff Dean Growdon to be the new sheriff in town to replace retiring Sheriff Steve Warren. These men will not take office until Jan. 4. Wosick has six months to attend supervisor meetings and learn his new job by observing the different committees supervisors sit on and there are many. The people have confidence he is the new man for the job, and we wish him well in his new position making decisions for the people of Lassen County.

Growdon will continue working as assistant sheriff until he is sworn in as sheriff and that includes heading up the Lassen County Narcotics Task Force. The paper has always appreciated the open communication he has offered the news staff, and we look forward to continue working with him as always.

We also congratulate Karen Fouch for solidly beating challenger Kurt Bonham who chose not to run for a second term on the Susanville City Council but try his hand at auditor. More than 56 percent of the county voters gave Fouch their reassurance that she is and should continue to do her job. We support the voter’s decision.

We also congratulate all the winners who ran unopposed. None of them received 100 percent of the vote, which proves that the American voting system works.

As always it is our job at the paper to report what is happening in the county of Lassen and we will continue to attend many of the meetings our elected officials preside over. We also love to hear from our readers and do our best to check out legitimate stories that come our way.

As a reminder to keep our area beautiful: Candidates please remove your campaign signs as quickly as possible.

And again, congratulations to the winners and to those who lost, thank you for running campaigns based on what you can bring to the table and not on smearing your opponent.