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Fayetteville City Council Race Heads To Runoff

FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) – Two Fayetteville City Council candidates will head to a runoff later this month after neither got enough votes to win outright on Tu...

FAYETTEVILLE (KFSM) - Two Fayetteville City Council candidates will head to a runoff later this month after neither got enough votes to win outright on Tuesday (Nov. 4).

The runoff election for Fayetteville alderman Ward 1 will be between Paul Phaneuf and incumbent Adella Gray.

Phaneuf had 39 percent (1,759) of the vote, while Gray got 37 percent (1,661). A third candidate, Sonia Gutierrez, trailed them with 23 percent (1,110).

Neither Phaneuf nor Gray won a majority of the votes, so now the City Council spot will be decided in a runoff election set for Nov. 25.

Gray said she wasn't surprised by the outcome of the election, adding, "I was expecting pretty much what happened."

Phaneuf said he anticipated the results and "thought it would likely go into a runoff."

The candidates said the biggest issue in the race is Ordinance 119, which created a civil rights administrator in the city. Gray  said she is for the ordinance, while Phaneuf said he is against it.

Phaneuf said he didn't "like the process" that led to the ordinance's passage. The ordinance is up for a public vote in December.

Gray said Gutierrez was for the ordinance and hopes to sway some of those voters her way.

"Our challenge is to get out Sonia's people voting for me and my people voting for me and we will not have any trouble at all," she said.

Early voting for the runoff election will begin on Nov. 18.

City leaders said Ward 1 covers east and southeast Fayetteville, and only people living in the ward can vote in this race.

Two other City Council candidates who came out ahead on Election Day with less than 50 percent of the vote, John LaTour and Mark Kinion, do not have a runoff because their nearest opponent is more than 20 percentage points back. In municipal elections, the second-place finisher must be within 20 percentage points of the leader to force a runoff if the leader did not garner more than 50 percent of the vote, officials said.

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