ERV’S IN: Randy Ervin was hoping his mayoral race win wouldn’t be unopposed

Randy Ervin may have won his election, but there is a part of him that wishes it had not been unopposed. Don’t get him wrong, he said, a win is a win.

“Would it have been nice if it was uncontested? Yeah. But at the same it was a goal of mine six years ago when I retired and now I’m there,” Ervin said in a phone interview with Newton News on Election Night. “So now it’s time for me to put up or shut up I guess, huh?”

According to preliminary results posted by the Jasper County Auditor’s Office, Ervin received 907 votes for the mayoral race. With only 90 write-in votes, it is all but confirmed that Ervin is the next mayor of Newton. Ervin told Newton News it was exciting to win the race, but soon it will be time to get to work.

“Now we go forward and see what we can do for the city,” Ervin said. “…The urban sprawl is going to come east out of Des Moines, and my goal for the City of Newton is to create and maintain its own identity. When you think of Altoona, Mitchellville, Bondurant, you really don’t think of their core town.”

But when people think of Newton, Ervin added, they think of the town square and the splash pad and the golf course and the swimming pool and the library and the school district. To him, Newton has a great identity as a small town with big city amenities. He wants to maintain that as the urban sprawl stretches east.

As far as specific issues, the mayor-elect wants to focus on housing. He is already working with different organizations in town and city staff to bring rental properties, duplexes and multi-family housing to Newton. Ervin is also involved with the Newton Rail Park and wants to pursue ways to benefit that project.

“You’ll see growth like we haven’t seen since probably the 1940s and 1950s, and that excites me,” he said. “But we have got to be ready for it. We gotta have people in place for housing, our businesses, our restaurants, our golf course, our schools, our police, our fire. Everything’s gotta be ready for that next step.”

Ervin had previously run for mayor in the 2023 election, which was decided by only 13 votes. Mayor Evelyn George earned 911 votes to Ervin’s 898 votes. Lonnie Appleby, who launched his second campaign for mayor after running as a write-in candidate in 2021, received 798 votes.