Stone County voters turned out their appointed presiding commissioner Tuesday, choosing businessman Kelly Power over Gordon Weathers by 186 votes - the second time in four months a county decision has come down to a margin thinner than 200 ballots.

In April, voters kept the county's planning and zoning department by just 78 votes. On Tuesday, they replaced the commissioner who had spent months trying to reform it.

Power took 2,644 votes (38.2%) to Weathers' 2,458 (35.5%) in the three-way Republican primary. Doug Minton finished third with 1,819 (26.3%). Together the two challengers drew nearly two-thirds of the vote against the sitting commissioner. Power faces no opposition in November.

Weathers had held the office less than a year. Governor Mike Kehoe appointed him on September 22, 2025, filling the vacancy left when Mark Maples resigned that July.

A year defined by planning and zoning

Weathers took office as a petition drive was gathering to abolish planning and zoning in Stone County. Organizers submitted more than 1,400 signatures putting the question on the April 7 ballot.

"It's got to be basically burned to the ground and redone," petition supported David Youngblood told KY3 in January. "We're not 100% against planning and zoning. We just know that the people who are in there are not running it right."

Weathers backed letting voters decide, saying he had promised "to give Stone County back to the citizens and the residents." But he warned what would follow if the department disappeared amid the county's tourism growth: "Short-term rentals can go just about anywhere they want to, and there are no rules or regulations."

Voters kept planning and zoning by 78 votes - 4,123 to 4,045, or 50.48% to 49.52%, out of 8,168 ballots cast on the question.

Weathers read it as a mandate for change which ever way people voted. "The yes vote - they voted yes for change," he told KSMU in April. "And there are some people on the no side that voted no because they wanted change."

He then set out a six-month reform effort with the Southern Missouri Council of Governments: filling five vacant board seats in the Cass, Flat Creek B, Pine A, Ruth A, and Ruth B precincts, hiring a new planning and zoning director, retraining staff and rewriting regulations for public review.

Four months later, voters replaced him.

A divide drawn on the map

The April vote split the county along geographical lines - rather than party. Support for keeping planning and zoning rose steadily from north to south - from 6.4% in Lincoln, at the county's northern edge, to 76.9% in Ruth B - on Table Rock. The rural upland precincts voted to abolish the department. The lakeside precincts, where short-term rentals and shoreline development are concentrated, voted to keep it. The south's larger population carried the day by 78 votes.

Tuesday's commissioner race followed the same line.

Weathers carried seven precincts, six of which had voted to keep zoning. His strongest was Ruth C Rural, a small lakeside precinct that had backed the department 73.7% - there he took nearly 70% of the vote. He also won Ruth B City, Ruth B Rural, Ruth C, Pine B, and Sunset Cove.

In the north he collapsed. Weathers finished last in nine precincts, eight of which had voted to abolish zoning. He took 10.8% in Grant and 10.9% in Pierce, both of which had rejected the department by roughly three to one - precincts where the petition began. The anti-zoning vote split between Power and Minton, but there was enough of it that Weathers ran third in precinct after precinct.

The lone exception was Ruth A - Weathers' home precinct. It voted 56.6% to abolish zoning in April but still gave him 46.8%, his second-largest total anywhere.

Power's case

Power, a Stone County resident of 45 years, has spent four decades in business here - he ran Lakeway 1 Stop and now owns Ulrich Marine and Extreme Outdoors in Branson West. His campaign list "fixing the problems with Planning and Zoning" among its central commitments, alongside honest leadership, infrastructure growth, taxpayer protection, and expanded lake access.

That leaves the county with a commissioner-elect who campaigned on repairing the same department his predecessor was already working to repair - a contest less about whether planning and zoning survives than about who should be trusted to fix it, in a county that has not twice split nearly down the middle.

County clerk

Incumbent Denise Dickens kept her office, defeating challenger David Cash 4,293 to 2,544 - 62.8% to 37.2%. She is also unopposed in November.

Turnout

About 35% of registered voters cast ballots: 9,084 of 25,967.

Fire districts

Central Crossing Fire Protection District voters approved Proposition Fire, authorizing $4.5 million in general obligation bonds. It drew 62.9% support across Stone and Barry counties, 759 votes to 447. The district announced Wednesday, saying the money will help it "better protect our personnel, enhance the reliability of our fleet, and strengthen our support for mutual and regional partners."

The bonds will pay for acquiring property, building and equipping fire stations, buying new and replacement fire trucks and equipment to meet current safety standards, retiring existing lease financing, and other repairs. Central Crossing serves roughly 150 square miles around Shell Knob and Table Rock Lake.

The Nixa Fire Protection District's 1% sales tax question passed by 291 votes out of 7,173 cast — 52.0% districtwide. It funds district operations while cutting the property tax levy each year by an amount equal to half the previous year's sales tax revenue. Stone County's portion of the district backed it more strongly than Christian County's, 56.6% to 51.9%.

Ballot measures

All four constitutional amendments went the same way in Stone County as statewide, but not by the same margins.

The widest gap came on Amendment 4, which would have required citizen-initiated amendments to carry a majority in every congressional district. It failed statewide with 80.3% opposed. Stone County rejected it too, but far more narrowly — 72.2% to 27.8%, more than eight points friendlier to the measure than the state.

Stone County was also warmer toward Amendment 5, which would have phased out the state income tax as revenue grew. It drew 16.7% support statewide and 21.5% here, though it lost 7,076 to 1,937.

Amendment 1, renewing the 0.1% parks and conservation sales tax for 10 years, passed with 79.1% locally against 82.3% statewide. Amendment 2, requiring charter counties to elect their assessors, ran slightly ahead here at 79.8% to 76.9%.

Legislative and congressional

U.S. Rep. Eric Burlison won renomination in the 7th District with 73.8% districtwide, running stronger in Stone County at 76.4% over Grayson Hunt and John Casey.

Burt Whaley beat Tom Franiak 77.5% to 22.5% in the 138th District state House race — a result Stone County largely decided, casting 5,866 of the 8,020 votes. Matthew Overcast was unopposed in the 155th.

Statewide, Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick won renomination with 85.5%, almost exactly matching his 85.1% in Stone County. Quentin Wilson took the Democratic nomination with 67.8% statewide, though Stone County Democrats were closer to split, giving him 57.0%.

Results are unofficial until certified. See full results