PROVO — Mayor Lewis Billings appears to have beaten Dave Bailey again.
A difficult race that could have been seen as a referendum on how well Provo voters thought Billings did with his first two terms ended with a strong ratification of his performance.
More than three hours after polls closed and with 86 percent of votes counted, Billings led Bailey 62 percent to 38 percent. Billings became the second mayor in city history to win a third, four-year term, proving once again that he knows how to rally a majority of the city for his campaigns and projects.
"I think voters said, 'OK, you've done a good enough job, we want you to finish some of the things you've started,' " Billings said. "It's a great honor."
Bailey, who lost by only 362 votes in the 2001 race, wasn't ready to concede when 55 percent of the votes had been counted but recognized what he admitted was obvious.
"I think we're just prolonging the agony at this point," he said. "A miracle could happen, but that's what it would take at this point."
Cindy Richards had a massive lead in her bid for a third term on the City Council, leading challenger Adam Clark 71 percent to 29 percent. In other City Council races, former Mayor George Stewart led Mark Sumsion 54 percent to 46 percent, and challenger Cindy Clark unofficially defeated two-term incumbent Paul Warner, 51 to 49 percent, which was 42 votes.
Billings said the turning point in the campaign was a weekend where Bailey sent out two mailers that Billings said contained "blatant misrepresentation." The Billings campaign responded with a mailer titled "Fact vs. Fiction," which Billings said went through six printings because it proved so popular with voters.
"We tried to remind people that they live in one of the greatest communities in the nation," Billings said. "Provo really is better than ever. I think people wanted to embrace that positive theme. There was so much that was negative in this campaign. When he went negative this time, the momentum really swung. People fund-raised and worked like never before."
Bailey said it was Billings who went negative. He said the endorsement of Billings by Fire Chief Coy Porter and two former chiefs damaged morale in Provo's public safety departments, which have heavily backed Bailey, a retired Provo firefighter of 30 years.
Bailey also decried a mailer sent last weekend that said Bailey had told a meeting of the Democratic Women of Utah County that he would hire Democrat Nancy Jane Woodside as the city's chief administrative officer. The mailer, paid for by Richard Rawle, Scott Felsted and other residents but endorsed by nine state legislators and County Commissioner Steve White, asked Republicans to go to the polls and vote against a mayoral candidate they said didn't represent Provo's values.
Bailey, a registered Republican who called himself a fiscal conservative, said he didn't sleep much after the piece came out, adding that he never said he would hire Woodside, who helped prep him for debates during his campaign. The chairwoman of the Democratic Women, Kena Mathews, and others confirmed Bailey's account.
"It was a total fabrication," Bailey said. "Here's a lie they didn't check their sources on."
Bailey declined to answer a question about whether he would seek redress through a Provo city ordinance that makes it a misdemeanor to print false information in a campaign mailer.
"He put out some heavy, some very damaging material at the end that wasn't true and got his people riled up and got them out and I'm sorry he had to play his campaign like that," Bailey said, "but he needs a job, so I guess he did what he had to do."
Billings was excited voters gave him a chance to finish projects he started, like the iProvo fiber-optic communications project. But he also said he learned a lesson.
"One of the things I think this election has made me feel a stirring about is that we need to focus on our communications efforts with citizens. We do a lot, but I'm going to ask our staff how we can more effectively engage our residents so they know what we're doing."
Bailey did manage to win Precinct 60, where both men live in the central area of the city, for a second straight time. About 29 percent of voters turned out for the city election, which Billings led from the start; Bailey had won only three of 33 precincts at press time.
Daylen Bushman voted for Billings at Amelia Earhart Elementary School on Provo's west side. He recently moved from Texas and was surprised by the flurry of fliers that showed up in his mailbox this fall, but he said the mayor's race was tame "compared to what I was expecting."
Bushman voted for Billings after polling his neighbors and friends, who felt Billings had done a good job.
Brent Petersen voted in the northeast end of the city and cast his ballot for Bailey.
"I did because why not, why not make a change?" he said.
Petersen also said the race was as negative a one as he could remember.
E-mail: twalch@desnews.com