Former Myersville mayor, two incumbents elected to Town Council

May 11—A former Myersville mayor will join two incumbents on the Town Council after what officials described as solid turnout in Monday's contested election.

Wayne Creadick Jr., who served as the town's mayor from 2001 until 2020, was sworn in Tuesday alongside Mark Flynn, who won a fifth term on the council, and Bob Ziegler, who won a second.

Ziegler, a former teacher at Myersville Elementary School, received 263 votes — the most of any of the four candidates vying for the three open seats. Flynn, who heads the K-9 unit of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, received 216 votes.

Creadick received 191 votes. He will replace Robert Berkey, who was elected in 2018 and didn't run for reelection. Creadick did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon.

Daniel Cowell, a member of the town's Planning Commission who also ran unsuccessfully in 2018, received 88 votes. Cowell did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

In all, 298 town residents voted at the Myersville Municipal Center on Monday, said Town Clerk Kathy Gaver. That's about 22% of the town's 1,346 registered voters.

Myersville holds elections every two years. When the mayor and two council seats were on the ballot in spring 2020, Gaver recalled, only about 60 or 70 residents cast ballots — a dip she attributed to the pandemic.

In Gaver's 22 years as the town's clerk, she has seen elections with a turnout even lower than that and some with higher participation, she said. She said Monday's near-perfect weather may have boosted voter engagement this year.

"The turnout was wonderful," Ziegler said. "And the best part about it was that people would vote and then hang out for 20, 30 minutes in the parking lot, just talking. It's like, after the pandemic, people are yearning for human touch and human conversation."

Ziegler said he talked to voters about ways to improve town parks and promote town gatherings. He told residents he was committed to work on the Myersville Greenway Trail, a decade-long plan to establish wooded trails encircling the municipality. The project launched in 2017.

"The goal is to be able to walk around the entire town one day," Ziegler said.

Flynn said he emphasized highlights of his 16-year tenure on the council, pointing to infrastructure projects, the distribution of almost $1 million in pandemic relief funding and the acquisition of land for public parks as examples.

In his fifth term, Flynn said, he'd work to transition the town's water bills from a quarterly payment system to a monthly one and to implement electronic meter readers.

"It's going to be quicker and more efficient," he said.

Myersville Mayor Mark Hinkle said the election cycle was "respectful" and less "heated" than some previous ones had been.

"We all have like goals, and that's to take care of the town," Hinkle said. "So I think that's encouraging."

Follow Jillian Atelsek on Twitter: @jillian_atelsek