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EAST PALESTINE -- Voters in East Palestine have decided to stick with Incumbent Mayor Trent Conaway as the village continues to walk a road to recovery in the wake of the Feb. 3 Norfolk Southern train derailment.
Conaway, who stepped forward as the voice of the village in the hours following the rail disaster, defeated challenger Misti Allison in the mayoral race Tuesday.
Allison also put a face on the derailment when she testified before the U.S. Senate regarding the derailment, but fell short of the votes needed to replace Conaway as mayor. According to complete but unofficial results, Conaway took 56 percent of the votes to earn a second term as mayor, finishing with 792 votes, to Allison's 539.
Conaway asked voters to give him a chance to finish what he started and to see East Palestine through to the end of the rebuilding and recovery process following the derailment. He recently wrote an op-ed for the Washington Examiner calling on swift passage of the Railway Safety Act -- proposed legislation to enhance railroad safety on the federal level.
Heading into Tuesday's election, Conway spoke of the many projects already in motion to help revitalize East Palestine and moved the village past the events of Feb. 3 as major milestones in the clean-up efforts have already been reached. These projects include a $25 million overhaul of the city park, the hiring of a private-sector economic development consultant, partnering with economic development and public relations firms and several other economic opportunities presented in the wake of the rail disaster. Last week, both Norfolk Southern and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency both announced all contaminated soil has been removed from the derailment site as remediation nears completion. Conaway spoke at the EPA press conference held at the site and called the milestone a "bittersweet" moment.
"We didn't want these events to happen at all, but they did," he said. "It feels good in a sense and sad in a sense that this happened to our village in the first place."
Conaway became mayor in 2019 after an uncontested run, replacing the acting mayor Alan Cohen, who was appointed to serve the remainder of Margo Zuch's term in 2018. A 1998 graduate of East Palestine High School, Conaway lived in Negley for 10 years before moving back to East Palestine in 2004. He has volunteered with the East Palestine Fire Department for nearly a decade. Conaway is a married father of two.
Requests for comment from Conaway went unanswered.