Earlier article/thread.
Posted on 11/04/2009 11:29:33 AM PST by MitchellC
GREENSBORO — The City Council just got a lot more conservative — starting with the guy at the top.
First-time mayoral candidate Bill Knight ousted incumbent Yvonne Johnson in Tuesday’s City Council election.
The victory is the first by a challenger over an incumbent mayor since voters began electing the mayor at-large in 1973.
Knight ran on a platform of fiscal conservatism and cleaning up the city’s police department. He will lead a council that, in the course of one election, now has a supermajority of registered Republicans.
“The voters spoke to change,” Knight said.
About 18 percent of the city’s registered voters turned out for the election, which included the nine Greensboro City Council seats and one bond referendum.
Candidates, their campaign staffers and supporters were tense Tuesday night as the results from the city’s 106 voting precincts rolled in.
The race between the mayoral candidates was close. Johnson, who has served one term as mayor, congratulated Knight when it became clear he would win.
His margin was 935 votes out of the 34,347 cast in complete but unofficial results.
Johnson has caught criticism over the chaos that has been a mainstay of City Council the last two years. But she was still pitting her 16 years of experience on the City Council against Knight, 70, who has never held political office.
Ping to News & Record article on Knight’s victory. (I think I got it right this time...)
Perhaps it was done by electing someone from within the City Council. A lot of cities still do that. I still can’t find the last Republican to have held the Greensboro Mayorship.
Congrats to Knight.
He has his work cut out for him.
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