Election day brought many emotions — and a sense of relief — to the candidates who ran for mayor and the Surprise City Council in Districts 2, 3, 4 and 5.
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Election day brought many emotions — and a sense of relief — to the candidates who ran for mayor and the Surprise City Council in Districts 2, 3, 4 and 5.
Winners in unofficial totals were the following: Skip Hall for mayor, Alyson Cline for District 2, Patrick Duffy for District 3, Ken Remley for District 4 and Jack Hastings for District 5.
Here’s a look into the voting and campaigning in each district:
District 2
Ms. Cline defeated Wendell Fountain nearly 2-to-1, but she wasn’t so sure she had won before seeing the results.
She said she started to feel nervous about 15 minutes before they were officially released. But when she realized she had by far the most votes, she called it a big relief.
“It’s a lot of hard work,” she said, adding the joke, “Whose idea was this for me to do this?”
Ms. Cline is already planning to work with incumbent Councilwoman Nancy Hayden over the next five month for a smooth transition.
“She said she wants to get me all set up,” Ms. Cline said.
Ms. Cline received the most votes of any City Council candidate in all of the districts up for grabs.
Ms. Cline said she will be pushing some of her personal passions on the Council, including women in business and veterans affairs.
“There’s stuff where I get an idea in my head, so the next five months [until inauguration] I’ll be thinking how can I start the outreach in those areas.”
Mr. Fountain declined to comment on his election loss, citing what he felt was the Surprise Independent’s biased coverage of him.
However, the Independent gave all candidates in every district and mayor the same opportunities for guest editorials, asked the candidates the same questions and published letters for and against all the candidates as well.
District 3
Mr. Duffy won big over Greg Norberg, a far cry from sweating out an 11-vote margin over Greg’s wife, Gisele, in 2018. This time he comfortably earned 69% of the vote to make it a rout.
“I didn’t expect it to be that big of a margin, but I’m happy it was,” Mr. Duffy said.
Unlike the last campaign when he earned controversial endorsements from the local police and fire unions, Mr. Duffy went with a strategy just focusing on his record this time.
“It wasn’t like six months worth of campaigning,” Mr. Duffy said. “This was the body of work for two years.”
He said he put his faith in the residents that they would vote for him.
“If I was there for the residents, they’ll be there for me,” he said. “And they were.”
Mr. Norberg did not comment after the loss.
District 4
Mr. Remley ran unopposed in the district that mostly serves the Original Town Site.
“I really work hard to represent my district, and I think the people know that,” Mr. Remley said. “They see the changes. I did what I was elected for.”
He was first elected in 2016, unseating the appointed Rachel Villanueva.
“My big goal when I ran in the first place was to reestablish some community pride in our Original Town Site,” Mr. Remley said. “The whole city’s attitude has changed. There is pride in that district today that there wasn’t there four years ago. Maybe I helped, but the people did that. I’m proud of everybody for pitching in and making that happen.”
Mr. Remley already helped push for more library hours during non-pandemic times and envisions a bigger library there someday soon.
District 5
The race between Mr. Hastings and incumbent Councilman David Sanders was expected to be tight but ended up being a blowout.
Mr. Hastings described the moment when David Sanders called him to concede “surreal.”
“I don’t think it’s fully hit me,” he wrote in a text after talking to Mr. Sanders.
Like Ms. Cline’s last-minute nerves, Mr. Hastings began feeling itchy in the hour between polls closing and the release of the first results. Not only was he anxious to find out, he was sunburned from standing out in front of City Hall all day to get last-minute votes.
He took a shower to end a day that started at 4:45 in the morning, put on aloe vera, prayed — “I gave it to God — then started furiously refreshing his web browser until the good news popped up on his screen.
“I had the most experience that mattered for the position,” Mr. Hastings reasoned. “I worked my butt off for this. We raised the money. We put the work in.”
Mr. Sanders said the loss, especially the margin, “stung, and it still kind of stings now.”
“It’s not the outcome we wanted,” Mr. Sanders said. “The residents spoke. We kind of do our job, put our brand and our message out there to the best of our ability. The residents speak.”
Mr. Sanders said he gave some advice to Mr. Hastings for when he takes over in January.
“It’s important to people to always say ‘I’m doing it for the city, doing it for the residents,’” Mr. Sanders said. “You need to set yourself aside and look out for the residents. We work for them. Not saying here, but some electeds get that wrong. They get it backward. That’s where a lot of mistakes were made.”
As a government/civics teacher at Valley Vista High School, Mr. Hastings said he feels he has a good grasp on that concept.
“At the end of the day, we’re just supposed to work for the people,” Mr. Hastings said.
Mr. Sanders said COVID-19 hampered his ability to campaign. Not only because social gatherings have been eliminated, but he and his wife had to recover from a quarantine period when they contracted the virus.
“I didn’t have the freedom or the ability to get out and speak to as many people as I wanted,” Mr. Sanders said.
Mr. Sanders has another piece of advice for Mr. Hastings.
“Find out how it really works because once you get in there, you find out the things that were said and the things that were perceived are very different,” Mr. Sanders said. “But you’re not going to know that until you’re in there. Or seek out the advice or knowledge or others who know. It was an eye-opener for me.”
Former NAU Lumberjack who loves going to concerts (or I did), watching sports (or I did) and hanging out with friends (oh, never mind). I also enjoy backgammon, surfing and men who are not afraid to cry.
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