BELLE — Belle City Clerk Frankie Hicks swore in new Mayor Steve Vogt and Alderman Sundi Jo Graham on June 9. The two replaced incumbents former mayor Josh Seaver and former alderman Ken Stanfield.

Mayor Steve Vogt began his first meeting back with a speech thanking his supporters and talking about his commitment to city issues.

“Thank you everyone for being here, I appreciate everyone that not only voted for me, but also voted. There was about a 35 percent turnout, which is better than what they had in the county and places around us. It really would have been nice to have that 90 percent.”

Vogt congratulated Sundi Jo, Kayla and Terry on their races, and said they ran good races.

“I specifically want to thank Josh and what a fine job he did over the past two years,” Vogt continued. “He made some difficult decisions. It’s part of the position, sometimes you have to do that, and Ken for his four years. I appreciate the hard work he put in as well. Anyone who has served in any of these positions knows that you have to make a lot of tough decisions and there are a lot of tough decisions yet to make.”

Vogt continued that he is very proactive in making sure that they have a balanced budget at the city level.

“We have some good employees and I want to make sure that everybody that works for the city of Belle in any capacity earns their way and does their job and that could be a rub in the future,” Vogt said. “Unfortunately this is citizens/taxpayers money and they deserve to get the most bang for their buck and we can’t have people sliding by and having a job and not doing the job.”

Vogt said he agrees with Fred Bethmann Jr.’s earlier comments about construction permits and Ordinance 593 that would more closely regulate property maintenance and public nuisance.

“We don’t have anybody doing the job of the nuisances for example, and you can write a pile of nuisance notifications, but unless the person who has the authority to issue citations or tickets does their job, people basically say ‘what are my consequences?’ and if there are no consequences, people have a tendency to let things slide because there are no consequences.”

Vogt said he hopes that will change because the city needs to get the person who is supposed to be following up on the nuisances — whether grass cutting or picking up dogs — if they are not doing their job, they are going to publicize that more.

“It wasn’t done the last time and now we are going to have the streaming on Facebook so I think the citizens will be more aware of the concerns,” he said. “I will try to do what is best for the city of Belle. We are not going to please everybody and I figured that out a long time ago.”

Vogt said he has gone door-to-door and took “tongue lashings” over previous decisions that were made.

“I figure with the number of the votes that I got, combined with the number of votes that Josh got, we are both on the same page,” Vogt said. “Therefore, I think we have a majority of the people who feel the same way. I hope the council will be supportive and we can do that.”

Vogt asked Graham if she had anything she wanted to say.

“Nope,” Graham said amidst laughs. “Just that I don’t want to come in here guns ablazin’ acting like I know everything. I am a learner and I am going to ask lots of questions.”

Prior to the swear-ins, the board certified election results with a 4-0 vote.

Mayor votes were:

Steve Vogt received 15 votes in Osage County and 88 in Maries County

Josh Seaver received 19 votes in Osage County and 72 votes in Maries County

Terry Connors received 6 votes in Osage County and 18 in Maries County

Kayla Bray received 10 votes in Osage County and 68 votes in Maries County

Alderman Ward 1 vote for incumbent Jeanette Struemph who ran unopposed was 43 votes in Osage County and 60 votes in Maries County.

Alderman Ward 2 votes in Maries County only were:

Incumbent Ken Stanfield 80 votes

Sundi Jo Graham 93 votes