By Sam Parsons

The city of Oskaloosa held a special election yesterday for their vacant at-large city council seat. After all of the votes were tallied last night, Andy Holmberg was named the winner.

A total of 673 Oskaloosa residents cast votes for the election. That’s just over 10% of the number of registered voters in the city. 448 of those votes, or 66.6%, went to Holmberg. In second place was Nicholas Ryan, who garnered 169 votes, or 25.1%. In third was Manny Garcia, who received 56 votes, or 8.3%. There were no write-in votes cast.

The election concludes a race that began in May, when former Oskaloosa city councilmember Charlie Comfort announced his resignation. The Oskaloosa city council appointed Holmberg to fill the vacancy left by Comfort in their meeting on June 2; however, in the days that followed, a petition was received by the city requesting a special election. Holmberg, Ryan, and Garcia were three of the five people who initially applied to fill the seat via appointment, and they were the only names on the ballot for last night’s special election.

The seat will be back up for election in November.