Mayor Kenneth Chesshir was elected to his 13th term as mayor of the Beeville City Council Tuesday evening after three councilmen took their oaths of office for the next two years.
Thirty-six-year-old operation supervisor for Time Warner Cable Co. David Carabajal was the newcomer on the council. He defeated Ward 4 incumbent Gerald Arismendez by 51 votes in Saturday’s election. Carabajal drew 170 votes to Arismendez’s 119.
The others who took their oaths of office were John Govella Fulghum, 47, who won his ninth two-year term on the council by defeating challenger Jessy T. Garza in Ward 3. Fulghum earned 214 votes and Garza drew 189 votes.
Fulghum, who has been mayor pro tem on the council for the past 12 years, also was re-elected to that position.
The Ward 3 race was the closest contested race for city council. It pitted Garza, 60, a retired oil company executive who has a Harvard degree, against Fulghum, a Beeville jeweler.
Garza drew 67 votes on election day, compared to Fulghum’s 58. Garza also beat the incumbent in personal appearance early votes cast at City Hall, with 65 votes to Fulghum’s 59.
However, Fulghum had 97 mail votes to Garza’s 55, cinching the election. Garza also had two voted cast by machine, bringing his total to 189. However, that was not enough to overcome the 214-vote total that Fulghum got in the election.
The result in Ward 4, where newcomer Carabajal defeated one-term incumbent Arismendez by 25 votes, was somewhat different. Carabajal beat Arismendez in mail ballots, 65-42, but the newcomer also had an overwhelming lead in personal appearance early ballots, gaining a whopping 58 votes to Arismendez’s six..
However, Arismendez had an overwhelming lead on Carabajal at the polling place Saturday, getting 71 votes to Carabajal’s 47. Still, the final outcome was 170 votes for Carabajal to Arismendez’s 199.
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