TenHaken Wins Sioux Falls Mayoral Election, No Raises
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) - Sioux Falls voters have reelected Paul Taken in the 2022 mayoral election. Mayor TenHaken easily won reelection, claiming 73% of the vote.
Taneeza Islam conceded Tuesday evening. She trailed TenHaken by an over 2-to-1 vote margin at the time, with nearly half of precincts reporting.
The third candidate in the race, David Zokaites, was a distant third at the time with only two percent of the vote.
TenHaken will serve a second consecutive term in the city government’s top job.
“It’s been a hard 4 years, but we sit here today with 19% sales tax growth here every year, 1% unemployment, crime that’s down on almost every category every year and I just feel a duty, a responsibility to continue what we started,” said Tenhaken. “There’s an optimism in Sioux Falls right now that I feel is very strong and I want to continue that momentum here in the next four years.”
In the race for the “At-Large A” seat in City Council, Sarah Cole defeated incumbent Sarah Brekke and fellow challenger Bobbie Andera. Cole received 53% of the vote - just over the 50% vote required to avoid a runoff.
It was a similar story in the central district, where Curt Soehl won 52% of the vote against challengers Emmet Reistroffer and Jim Burzynski.
The closest race of the night was for the “At-Large B” seat. Rich Merkouris took home 53% of the vote, narrowly defeating his sole challenger, Pam Cole.
Meantime, David Barranco claimed the other city council seat up for grabs, defeating Cody Ingle with 59% of the vote to represent the southeast district.
Voters also had to decide on two city charter amendments. Amendment A, which would have increased the salary for both the mayor and city council members, was voted down by a 53% to 47% margin. Amendment B, which gave the city council more authority over the position of city attorney, passed with 57% approval.