North Texas Daily

James Norman | News Editor

Unofficial results have Robson Ranch’s Don Duff winning District 3’s runoff election for Denton City Council, defeating Paul Meltzer.

According to the results, with 10 precincts reporting, Duff won the election by a margin of 52 votes, just over 2 percent. While Duff won the overall total, Meltzer took home six of the precincts to Duff’s two (two precincts did not record a vote). Of Duff’s 1,283 total votes, results show 93 percent of them came from his home precinct, which contains Robson Ranch, a retirement community and where Duff lives.

The first election for District 3 in early May had no candidate gain at least 50 percent of the vote, leading to a runoff. Jason Cole, the third candidate in the race, dropped after a last place finish. Duff finished with almost 43 percent of the vote in the initial race to Meltzer’s 38 percent.

In a statement about the results, Duff said he was looking forward to clearing out “wasted money” from the budget. He also emphasized his focus on public defenders.

“The money needs to go to the police department, the fire department and the streets,” Duff said. “The city is growing. [Denton] does not have enough police officers. To me, that’s unacceptable.”

Duff also reaffirmed his support for an ethics ordinance, saying he expects the city council to put one “on the ballot.”

“If they do not have it done, I will get a petition and I will have it done,” Duff said.

Duff replaces Kathleen Wazny, who decided not to run for re-election.