Republican Kyle Goff will advance as the Republican candidate for White County Executive, winning some 73 percent of the vote.
Incumbent Denny Wayne Robinson’s finished with 26 percent of the vote share. Goff’s victory means he will face Independents Joseph Hallums and Penny Whaley in August. Goff said his platform of change and new ideas resonated with many of his voters.
“Building back some of the relationships with the county commission, other local governments, other departments within the county (and) increased transparency,” Goff said. “Just a fresh look on our, our financial sustainability and our fiscal solvency. You know, the infrastructure needs that we have due to the massive amount of residential development that’s been going on in the county, and then our emergency services obviously is always a huge talking point for me.”
Goff said a burst of enthusiasm is needed to bring individuals in county government back to working together again and to rebuild many those relationships.
“There’s so many of those times that we gather together and there’s items on the agenda that we’re unfamiliar with that we have, we’re hearing about for the first time,” Goff said. “And then we’re called upon to vote on some of those things. And you know, we need quite a bit of guidance from the full time employees that are managing the daily operations of the county. Because as a county commission…our purview is very, very limited into what we can see.”
Goff said transparency and communication will be the key to future collaboration.
The sales tax referendum also on the ballot Tuesday failed in White County, with majority of voters deciding to reject the tax increase.
All voting totals are still unofficial until approved by the election commission.