CAMPBELL — Councilman Bob Stanko will keep his seat in the city’s 4th Ward.

In that race, both candidates were write-ins. According to unofficial results from the Mahoning County Board of Elections on Wednesday, Stanko received 97 votes to Pat Gentile’s 15.

A third write-in candidate, Constantino Frangopoulos, withdrew his candidacy before Tuesday’s election.

Results show that 29 write-in votes were left unassigned in the race, some of which presumably would have been his.

Mahoning County Board of Elections tallies total write-in votes on election night, but they do not distinguish between them until the morning after.

“I was working today, so somebody texted me and said congratulations,” Stanko said. “I was good either direction if the citizens had spoken (differently) but I’m always happy to take a win.”

Stanko said he is pleased to retain his seat, but has great respect for Gentile.

“He and I discussed it at the polls, and he said he wished he’d made more of a push for it,” he said. “I told him we have another election in two years, and I told him to be ready and come again, because that’s what makes democracy work. He’s always been a good guy and always been a good friend, and I think it was a well-run race.”

Other than the mayor’s seat being filled by a duly elected candidate, Stanko said not much has changed in Campbell.

“I feel the city will move forward just as we were going to. It’s a small town and we all know each other. We all have different strengths,” he said. “We work hard to emphasize each other’s strengths and support each other in our weaknesses, so we get the job done.”

He said he feels that newly elected councilpersons Mary Janek and Ioannis Kalouris will serve the city well.

Stanko also spoke on the ballot initiative residents passed that gives council a say in firing the police chief. The measure passed with just under 70% of the vote.

The city charter allows the mayor to hire a police chief with the approval of a majority of council, but the same standard was not applied to firing that person.

Theoretically, the city could have had three different chiefs this year, had interim Mayor George Levendis decided to fire Chief Kevin Sferra for any reason. He could then have replaced him, pending council’s support, with someone else. Then, in turn, newly-elected mayor Bill Valentino could have fired that person and replaced them with his choice, pending council approval.

“That’s not the type of consistency that builds good police work, so we wanted to give the city council a voice in the firing of such a high-profile public official,” he said.

Stanko was clear that there are no plans to relieve Sferra of his duties.

“He’s in very good standing with the city,” he said. “He’s a great chief and we’ve been very pleased with him.”

Voters also returned law director Lamprini Gust Mathews to her office. Unofficial results show Mathews defeated Brett Billec by a margin of about 58% to 42%.

Levendis ran unopposed to return to his former seat as council president, and in the 1st Ward, Tim O’Bryan won as a write-in candidate with 75% of the vote, receiving 30 votes.

There were 10 votes unassigned in that race.