HAMILTON - Official results from Ravalli County's municipal elections are still a few days away, but as of Wednesday afternoon, tallies for individual races had changed little from the unofficial results released late Tuesday evening.

Ravalli County Clerk and Recorder Regina Plettenberg said the mail-in ballot election went off without a hitch.

"We had a lot of interest, not only from the voters turning in ballots the last couple of days, but from the public coming to watch," she said. "We had a lot of people down here watching our count."

In Hamilton's mayoral race, both candidates picked up a few more votes, bringing incumbent Mayor Jerry Steele's total to 774 and challenger Michael Spreadbury's total to 208.

In the race for Hamilton City Council for Ward 1, challenger Melvin Monson slightly increased his lead over incumbent Michael LaSalle, bringing the count to 226-184.

A council veteran and local schoolteacher of more than 30 years, Monson said he'll focus on whatever projects arise in the new term as well as emphasizing safety and children's issues.

He said he favors seeking alternative funding sources for city projects and giving the taxpayers a break.

"The economy is down right now and I want to do what we can do for the citizens of Hamilton without a lot of [tax] increase on them," he said. "Try not to get any more debt, but if there are grants or stimulus money available, then, yeah, maybe that will help jobs and things around here and that would be great."

Vote counts in the Ward 3 council race remained largely unchanged with Lynette Helgeland defeating write-in candidate Stacy Lewis 197-116.

Helgeland, a political newcomer and a stay-at-home mother, said she would focus some of her attention on the city's infrastructure and its growth.

"We have quite a few departments outgrowing their facilities and it's very important that we develop a plan on how we're going to meet those needs, so we're not passing some sort of mill levy in the future to try to cover building costs and things that we're in desperate need of," she said.

In the race for the Hamilton Ward 2 council seat, incumbent Nancy Joy Hendrickson defeated challenger Corey Johnson.

In the Stevensville mayoral race, Mayor-elect Lewis Carter Barnett, who defeated Clayton D. Floyd Jr., said that he was looking forward to the challenges of the office.

"The city's going to go through some changes," he said. "We're going to institute policy and we're going to be a little more financially responsive, a little more conservative and we're going to establish better communications between the departments and the citizens of Stevensville. That's what I ran on and that's what we're going to do."

In the Stevensville Ward 1 council races, Robin Holmes and Patrick Groninger were the victors, while declared write-in candidate Desera Towle won the Ward 2 council race against Ken Scrivner.

Official results for the municipal elections are expected to be released on Tuesday.

Ravalli Republic reporter Will Moss can be reached at 363-3300 or wmoss@ravallirepublic.