Democratic candidate and incumbent Laurel Prussing was voted mayor of Urbana on Tuesday. She received 62.5 percent of the vote over her opponent Rex Bradfield’s 37.5 percent.

“I feel just fine,” Prussing said. “I was hoping for sixty percent and did a little better than that, so that was nice.”

This is Prussing’s third term as mayor and the second consecutive term where she was able to surpass her Republican opponent in votes. The outcome mirrored the 2009 election in which Prussing won with 53 percent of the vote, while Bradfield received 32 percent.

The election saw 14,467 voters this week, in comparison to the 26,300 people who voted in the 2009 race.

“I have no idea why there were so many less people,” Champaign County Clerk Gordy Hulten said. “I don’t know if it was more or less contested races, I don’t know if it was the fact that the election was after Easter, I don’t know if it was election fatigue from the presidential election we just had … I just don’t know.”

Bob Koch, an election judge, said the mayoral election was the most important issue on the ballot.

“It was the main race that had more than one person looking to get a spot,” he said. 

Koch said he saw a few hundred people vote at his polling place at St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, 2200 Philo Road, Urbana.

For many citizens, taxes was a main issue that influenced their votes.

“Getting new people in (to run for government) and my sitting in on a mayoral meeting strongly influenced me,” said Jim Barker, Urbana citizen since 1979. “I was ready for a new mayor … We had sidewalk repair and things that normally would be done that aren’t getting done, but they are still taking taxes out for them.”

Prussing said much of these taxes had to do with a new hospital bill that was passed into law last year.

“The hospitals have gotten a bill through the legislature last year saying that they’re charities, which means that they don’t have to pay local property taxes,” she said. “That means their charity care is being paid for by the taxpayers of one city — Urbana — because they’re located in Urbana, yet they serve counties for miles around. I think that’s an inequity that we’re going to have to deal with.”

Prussing said her biggest challenge will be budgeting for the city of Urbana. She will be responsible for distributing collected taxes, which make up the budget. 

Prussing will resume office and face these issues in May.

“The main problem (that I will deal with) is the budget … that’s taken center stage because of (our) budget and because of the way that Illinois is in a big financial bind,” she said. “We don’t want them to solve their problems by shifting them onto local governments.”

Voter Steve O’Connell, of Urbana, said he thought Bradfield’s views on the budget and other economic issues were reasons why he was not voted into office.

“I think the opposing person (Bradfield) was looking to go in another direction economically,” O’Connell said. “I saw him as wanting to go a little more conservative … He didn’t seem to want to develop things as much as Prussing.”

Bradfield was not immediately available for comment.

Voter Carol Burwell said a reason voter turnout was so low could be that citizens are satisfied with Urbana’s government and therefore did not vote in the election.

“I think everyone’s pretty content with what’s going on in life,” she said. “I think people get really comfortable and think that this is just the way it is instead of going out and voting.”

Brittany can be reached at [email protected].