Experience was the common denominator determining the winners in the two races for Coos County Airport District board.

Incumbent Joe Benetti kept his Position 2 seat in Tuesday's special districts election, while voters welcomed back Jon Barton, who was appointed to Position 4 in 2005, but lost to John Briggs in 2008.



According to this morning's final unofficial totals, Benetti received 6,346 votes, 69 percent, compared to Fred Kirby, who got just over 30 percent of the votes, at 2,781. Benetti, who has been on the airport board for three years, said he isn't surprised his opponent received almost half the votes he did.

"He ran an honorable election," Benetti said. "I'm pleased that I got the votes I did, and was re-elected."

Benetti said he plans to forge ahead, continuing to tackle problems Southwest Oregon Regional Airport has been facing since last year - maintaining commercial flights to Portland and San Francisco.

"I plan to keep working on getting better flights, better times," Benetti said, "staying in contact with SkyWest and having a good relationship with them."

In the contest for Position 4, former airport board member Jon Barton beat Patrick Elliott and D. Stephen Pickering. Pickering came in third at 13 percent with 1,097 votes, but the other two candidates had a narrower margin - 54 percent with 4,438 votes for Barton and 32 percent with 2,658 votes for Elliott.



"An awful lot of people were extremely supportive of me," Barton said. "I'm honored they had enough confidence in me to make that much of a margin in the votes."

Barton, who has suggested strategies to maintain air service such as renegotiating subsidy contracts with SkyWest Airlines, and possibly subsidizing local ticket purchases instead, said he's ready for the challenges ahead of him.

"I'll do the best I can to get done what needs to be done over the four years," Barton said.

Elliott, who has never run for a political office before, was happy with the number of votes he received. He said he plans to continue his involvement with the airport and give commissioners his input when he feels he needs to.

"I think I have a respectable second place," Elliott said. "I wish Mr. Barton the best."