A Tale of Two Cliffhangers

I attended the recount of the Monona city council race for about an hour and a half this morning before departing for Miller Park and the Brewers home opener.

End result of the recount: The winners of the city council election remained the same (there is a possible appeal to circuit court as related in the Herald story). Mike Veserat retained his one vote lead over Chad Speight for the final spot. The overall race became slightly tighter because I lost three votes, Jim Busse gained two and both Speight and Veserat lost one.

Recount tally (winners in bold):

Wood 1311

Busse 1308

Veserat 1255

Speight 1254

Story on Herald: Veserat still ahead by one vote after recount

As stated in the Herald there could still be a second recount.

Although the margin remains at one vote, Andrusz confirmed that Speight still has five [business] days to request a hand recount of all the ballots through Dane County Circuit Court, since there was a different result from the one reported on April 7. Speight did not indicate whether he was considering such a move.

I was impressed by the professionalism of city staff, especially city clerk Joan Andrusz, and the volunteer election inspectors. Likewise, the candidates (Chad and Mike) conducted themselves properly and without any rancor whatsoever in trying circumstances. It was interesting to see some of the various voting combinations - while Speight/Wood and Busse/Veserat seemed to be the most common combinations, I also saw just about every imaginable other combination. Noam Chomsky was written in by at least two voters. Jeff Wiswell was written in for alderman on one ballot (huh?).

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Brewers claim walk-off win from Cubs

Later in the afternoon, the Brewers rallied to beat the Cubs in the bottom the 9th. Get this: Keys to the win were good defense, especially by Rickie Weeks (Weeks, Rickie) and good baserunning also by Weeks, and putting the bat on the ball in a couple crucial situations. First, Weeks turned a double-play and later stabbed a sharp groundball to rob the Cubs of run-scoring single. Then in the 9th, he drove a double to left field to tie the game, alertly advanced to third on a wild pitch, and then scored the winning run on a groundball to the shortstop on a bang-bang play at the plate.

All of that was done by a noticeably chunkier, junkier-in-the-trunk Weeks.

The downcast looks on the faces of the disappointed Cub fans was a sight to behold. Heart-warming, really.

More of my game photos are posted at http://mononapark.blogspot.com/