1 day Ago
NORTH AUGUSTA — Dennis Briatico upset North Augusta's election Tuesday, ousting incumbent and Mayor Pro Tempore Jenafer McCauley to become the first Democrat the city's had in recent history. Briatico’s win means that North Augusta will have three new representatives on the dais at City Council Chambers starting in May when Briatico, Robert Freitas and John Felak take their oaths of office and both McCauley and David McGhee — who lost to Freitas in the Republican primary — step down. Robert Freitas had won out over incumbent David McGhee in the Republican primary and in Tuesday's General Election, secured his spot on North Augusta City Council.
Unofficial results from the April 29 North Augusta Municipal Election show that Briatico received 1,345 votes; Republican Freitas had 1,356; Pat Carpenter earned 1,397; and McCauley got 1,213. Another 105 votes went to write-in candidates. Only the number of write-in votes was available for each race on Election Night.
A manual review of ballots will determine the names of the individuals later this week. Crystal Baskett had filed a letter of intent as an independent write-in back in December; no others did so. The three full-term races were the only ones contested in this year’s election, and the other two races — that for mayor and that for the unexpired Council term held by former Councilman Eric Presnell until last fall — were anti-climactic.
North Augusta Mayor Briton Williams, left, and fellow Republican John Felak went into Tuesday's election unopposed. Williams earned his second term as mayor, while Felak will take up former Councilman Eric Presnell's unexpired term. Current Mayor Briton Williams, who has been unopposed since candidate filing closed end of December with only his name registered, formalized his hold on the mayor’s seat for another four years with a two-to-one win over a bevy of write-in votes attributable to a last-minute campaign from Richard Fletcher.
Fletcher, a former North Augusta planning commissioner, area architect and moderator of the North Augusta 20/20 Facebook page, announced online a couple weeks ahead of Election Day that he’d serve if elected as a write-in candidate — much the same type of campaign he ran for City Council two years prior. The unofficial result was 1,329 votes for Williams and 774 for write-ins. John Felak, who beat out fellow Republican Michael Ford in the February primary contest for Presnell’s seat, also went into Election Day unopposed and merely solidified his own spot on the council, this through May 2027.
Unofficial results have it that Felak received 1,592 votes, with another 111 going to write-in candidates. North Augusta’s Municipal Election Commission is scheduled to meet late in the morning on May 1 to canvas the votes and certify results, at which point they will become official..
