District 6
Colley, Salzman in runoff
By Eric Maddy
The SCORE
For the second straight time, Marilyn Salzman ended Election Day without knowing for sure if she would be the city councilor for District 6.
Four years ago, it was a one-vote margin on Election Night in a battle with Todd Hathorne for the seat in the city’s most populous district. On Tuesday it was ladies before gentlemen in the District 6 as Salzman and newcomer Kathy Colley earned positions in Rio Rancho’s first runoff election ever.
Colley, who his making her first bid for elective office, received 672 votes, 40 more than Salzman. But their totals of 31.8 percent and 29.9 percent, respectively, did not beat the 50 percent plus one vote threshold established by voters in 2006, meaning the two candidates will have a runoff election with 35 days of Friday’s certification or results.
City Clerk Roman Montoya said the date of the runoff will be announced later Wednesday.
“I expected there would be a runoff,” Salzman said. “The people voted two years ago to have a runoff, and here it is in all of its glory. Once again I’m in the limelight. It’s amazing, isn’t it?”
Colley said getting more votes than the incumbent “meant quite a great deal to me.” But as to her plans for the runoff, she said, “I wish I could tell you something definitive or profound, but I haven’t had time to think about it.”
Salzman obviously has.
“She didn’t have a platform except let’s clean out old government, and that appealed to those people who were involved in the SAD. It was a knee-jerk reaction against me, because it happened to rain when I was having my parade. I couldn’t help it that I represent the very district that got flooded in the monsoons,” she said. “Seeing that all of the hot-button issues are in my district – Willow Creek and all of that – I think 40 votes isn’t actually too bad.”
Salzman said she was looking forward to a head-to-head debate with Colley on the issues.
“I would like to know what she plans to do for the district,” Salzman said. “She hasn’t shown her hand yet.”
District 4
Shaw ousts incumbent Balmer
By Eric Maddy
The SCORE
Former interim police chief Steve Shaw ended Howard Balmer’s nine-year reign as a city councilor from District 4, winning by more than a 2-to-1 margin in Tuesday’s election.
“I had no idea that I would do that well,” said Shaw, a 21-year veteran of the Rio Rancho police department who served as acting chief for six months between the retirement of Mike Baker and the appointment of current chief Robert Boone. “I was feeling very, very good today at the polls. The people who were coming through would pull up along the curb and talk to me and were just very, very supportive. From what I was seeing it was quite a high percentage of the people who voting were voting for me.
Shaw received 937 votes (67.6 percent) compared to Balmer, who received 450 votes.
Shaw surely benefited from Balmer’s co-sponsorship of the controversial Special Assessment District 7, which would impose an estimated $13,500 fee on homeowners to pay for flood control and other improvements to areas hit by flooding and heavy rain two years ago. But the councilor-elect said SAD-7 wasn’t the deciding issue.
“I think the numbers were there not only in the school district office polling site, which would have been the area where the SAD was from, but also form the south end of District 4 over at the (Chamisa Hills) Country Club (voting location),” he sad. “The numbers were coming in good at both, so to me that indicated it was not just the question of the SAD.
“People were just ready to give someone else the opportunity, and hopefully they liked what they were hearing form me. All I was going to promise was that I was going to do he best I could to make decisions for in the best interest of the city.
“My campaign was about me and what I felt I could offer he city with my past leadership and hopefully I’ll be able to prove that to the voters over the next four years.”
Balmer did not return phone messages left at two numbers seeking comment.
District 1
Mayor regains council seat
By Eric Maddy
The SCORE
To borrow a song lyric, what a long, strange trip it’s been for Mike Williams since the 2004 Rio Rancho election when he won his second term as city councilor.
Deputy mayor. Defeated candidate for mayor. Deputy mayor again. Acting mayor when Kevin Jackson resigned, then seven months as mayor to fill the bridge to Tuesday’s election.
And now he’s back to where he started four years ago: a re-elected city councilor by 280 more votes over his nearest opponent, Rosemary Owen.
“It shows the people still have the faith, the trust, the integrity in me,” Williams said late Tuesday night. “When you sit there and look at somebody who stepped up to the plate when everything was going wrong, then turned around and came back home after it was straightened out, how could you not?”
Williams said his “first order of business is to bring the new mayor up to speed so that he has a smooth transition, which will be the first in the history (of the city.)”
Williams got 481 votes to easily defeat Owen, the wife of former mayor Jim Owen, who also lost in Tuesday’s election. Rosemary Owen received 201 votes and Peter Rivas 162.
