Rye Blocks Harrison's Comeback in Ward 3

Door-to-door campaigning helped incumbent Stacy Rye defeat former Councilman Doug Harrison Tuesday in a race for the University area's Ward 3 seat on Missoula's City Council.

“I went and knocked on a lot of doors,” said Rye, who has served on the council for the past four years. “It’s all about shoe leather.”

Rye received 1,504 votes, or about 52 percent of the ward’s total. Harrison, who served for 12 years on the council through the 1980s and 1990s, garnered 1,089 votes.

Harrison had misgivings about his campaign, including how he connected with voters.

“I felt like we had articulated issues that needed to be addressed,” Harrison said. “I don’t think we did a good enough job of getting the message (of those issues) across.”

Rye said traffic was one of the defining issues in the election. She said she didn’t support raising the speed limits on Fifth and Sixth Streets, unlike Harrison.

“He has said that his idea of quality of life is not sitting in traffic,” she said. “I don’t think you need to have cars moving faster.”

For the next term though, she said, her priority will be revamping the city's zoning regulations. Starting six months ago, the council began rewriting those rules, a process that could take up to three years.

“We have zoning regulations that have been on the books since 1972,” she said. “Ithas a lot to do with growth -- a lot, a lot, a lot.”

Rye said Ward 3 has one of the highest percentages of student voters and has historically voted for the Democratic candidate. The Missoula County Democratic Central Committee endorsed the 38-year-old Rye. Harrison ran as a nonpartisan candidate.

Rye said she appealed to student voters because she was able to relate to them as renters. “I was a student before I was a homeowner,” Rye said. “I can remember the days of bad landlords.”

Rye said the direction the council might take in the next four years depends on the council’s makeup and its staff. She repeatedly said she was more concerned with other City Council race results, especially Ward 4 incumbent Jerry Ballas’ loss. Ballas was known as swing vote on the council.

Harrision, who spent part of the campaign in the hospital, dealing with a life-threatening ulcer, said he might not run again.

“Part of this election, I was down and out because of my health,” he said.

About 31 percent of active voters in Ward 3 participated in the election.

“Ward 3 is extremely plugged in,” Rye said.

- By MARK PAGE, BEN PREZ, ZACH WARREN, MELISSA WEAVER AND ASHLEY ZUELKE