FAYETTEVILLE -- South Fayetteville voters elected Alderwoman Adella Gray to another four-year term on the City Council Tuesday.
Gray defeated her opponent, Paul Phaneuf, in the Ward 1 runoff election, earning 1,076 votes (54 percent) to Phaneuf's 930 (46 percent), according to final but unofficial results from the Washington County Election Commission.
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Runoff Results
Go to nwavote.com for more results from Tuesday’s runoff election in Washington and Benton counties.
"I'm very excited. I think the people of Ward 1 know what they want in their city," Gray said after watching results come in at El Camino Real on South School Avenue. "I'm just so happy that they have chosen me to continue to serve."
Phaneuf said he was disappointed but not discouraged Tuesday night.
"We left it all on the field," he said. "I have no regrets in terms of what we did. I'm not going away. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to wake up and my feet are still moving."
Gray was first elected to her Ward 1, Position 1 seat on the City Council in 2006. She's scheduled to be sworn in for a third term in January.
The retired school counselor ran a campaign based on her experience and her support for various initiatives, including enhanced sidewalk construction, expanded recycling efforts and the city's purchase in March of 328 acres atop Mount Kessler in southwest Fayetteville.
Phaneuf, a minister, author and Libertarian political activist, campaigned on the limited role of government and on his opposition to a controversial Civil Rights Administration ordinance the City Council approved Aug. 20, with Gray's vote. Fayetteville voters will determine the fate of the ordinance in a Dec. 9 special election.
Asked whether the result in Tuesday's Ward 1 race was a sign of things to come Dec. 9, Gray said, "I certainly am hoping so."
"I feel strongly that all residents of Fayetteville will realize that this is something important for us to have: an anti-discrimination ordinance," she added.
Voters cast 2,008 ballots in Tuesday's runoff election. That's 2,524 less than the 4,532 Ward 1 residents who voted in the Nov. 4 general election. At that time, Phaneuf received 1,759 votes (39 percent) to Gray's 1,663 (37 percent) and a third candidate, Sonia Davis Gutierrez's 1,110 (24 percent), according to the Election Commission.
After failing to advance to Tuesday's runoff election, Gutierrez publicly endorsed Gray.
Ward 1 encompasses a wide swath of south Fayetteville, including Walker Park, Lake Sequoyah, Mount Kessler, the Senior Activity and Wellness Center, the Yvonne Richardson Community Center, the Arkansas Research and Technology Park and several manufacturing plants, including Pinnacle Foods, Superior Industries and Tyson Foods' Fayetteville complex.
NW News on 11/26/2014