Small Town News

Buda elects first woman mayor

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Sarah Mangham is the new mayor-elect of Buda after defeating incumbent Bobby Lane by a mere eight votes, according to unofficial election totals released Saturday night. Votes will be canvassed later this week, makingelecition results official.

Mangham received 188 votes (51.1 percent) to Lane's 180 (48.9 percent). Mangham, Buda's former municipal finance director, said the narrow victory was a nice surprise and the result of hard work throughout her campaign.

"It just took everything," she said. "I'm ecstatic. Halfway scared, totally excited and ready to do a good job for the city ofBuda."

In the race for the Place 6 city council seat, Scott Dodd won 260 votes to write-in candidate David Stewart's 34. Running unopposed for the Place 5 seat, Dawn Shaeffer collected 250 votes.

Mangham said she'll be getting up to speed on city budget deliberations and economic development, as well as working with Hays County commissioners to shepherd Buda-area road projects through pre-construction red tape.

"The voters made a decision, and I'm going to do everything in my power to get some things accomplished that they want me to get accomplished," she said.

Lane, 59, served one term as mayor. Before that, he was mayor pro tern. With so many elected officials being ousted on state and national levels in recent elections, he said he wasn't surprised by the result of his race against Mangham.

"Maybe I'm kind of at the backside of the wave of change, and maybe people thought change would be good," Lane said. "I've been in office since 2000 as mayor or mayor pro tem. It's just one of those things."

Among Lane's achievements were establishing a police department and improving the way the city acquires and treats water.

"The things I've always stood for are public health and safety," he said.

Lane said Mangham would be a good leader for Buda.

"Sarah's a quality person," he said. "We both ran very clean campaigns, smooth campaigns, and we treated each other with respect and dignity."



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© 2011 The Free Press Buda, Texas. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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