Election Day review: Southern Shores, Nags Head oust mayors

For what had the potential to be a ho-hum Election Day in Dare County, contests in Nags Head and Southern Shores ended up having some good, old-fashioned political shake-ups.

Voters in both towns rejected incumbent mayors, but it was in Southern Shores, with its quiet tree-lined neighborhoods populated by highly educated retirees, where politics got downright raucous.

Challenger Hal Denny, an 84-year-old former councilman and mayor, steamrolled Don Smith at the polls, winning 809-352 - more than 69 percent of the vote.

Perhaps more surprising than Denny's rout of Smith was incumbent councilman Brian McDonald's loss to write-in candidate George Kowalski, who had thrown his hat in the ring barely three weeks before.

In Nags Head, two-term Mayor Renee Cahoon, 54, was ousted, 423-367, by Bob Oakes, a six-year member of the town's Board of Commissioners. At the same time, voters re-elected two incumbent commissioners.

John Ratzenberger, the chairman of Nags Head's inactive Citizens Advisory Committee, which acted as a liaison between the government and the community until a few years ago, said that both mayoral candidates had their merits. But ultimately, he said, change is good.

"I don't know how much shaking up there will be," Ratzenberger said. "Government is a ponderous thing. I'm hoping for a little more openness, a few less closed meetings."

Unlike Cahoon, who had no campaign Web site, 47-year-old Oakes had a sophisticated site and a Facebook group.

"We ran what I would call a modern campaign in that we used the Internet effectively," said Bob Muller, Oakes' campaign treasurer and a former Nags Head mayor.

"Renee Cahoon was an excellent mayor. We knew it was going to be an uphill fight. This was not a trouncing. It was not a clean sweep where voters say, 'We're angry and we're going to show it.' "

It was another story in Southern Shores.

One longtime resident, Jack Meagher, a member of the Southern Shores Civic Association, said he thinks many residents lost faith in Smith's administration.

Some streets are in such poor condition, Meagher said, "it's like driving over the Himalayas," and there were several mysterious staff departures and hirings. "You see no fingerprints on any of this stuff," he said. "They thought that whatever happened, it should be more above-board, not sub rosa."

Denny said voters obviously shared his disenchantment with the way town government has been run. He said he intends to reverse the "turmoil" and maintain openness in the process.

"I'm confident in myself in terms of leadership," he said. "My primary job is to stabilize, smooth and get us going in the right direction."

Smith, 58, defended his administration, saying more was accomplished under his watch than that of any other Southern Shores mayor.

Asked whether he'll seek office in the future, Smith didn't hesitate: "No way! Are you kidding me, after dealing with these kind of lunatics?"

Cahoon was more philosophical. She attributed her defeat to voters' difference of opinion on her vision of the town's future and the concept of a convention center.

"I think the longer you're in office, the more you have a record to stand on," she said. "The less you're in office, the less of a record."

Cahoon, who has also served on the state Coastal Resources Commission and the Dare County Board of Commissioners, is not ruling out a future bid for public office.

"I'm not even speculating," she said, "past the next day."

The new mayors will take office in three weeks.

Catherine Kozak, (252) 441-1711, cate.kozak@pilotonline.com