By BJ Austin, KERA News
Dallas, TX – Dallas will swear-in a new Mayor a week from Monday. Former Pizza Hut CEO Mike Rawlings won Saturday's runoff race over former Police Chief David Kunkle. KERA's BJ Austin says the mayor-elect will get a head start on his new job by meeting with individual council members.
Many council members, current and former, were at the Rawlings victory party, including former councilman Joe Haggar.
Haggar: And it's an honor for me to introduce to you the next mayor of Dallas, Mike Rawlings.
A majority of current council members endorsed Rawlings. Even so, the mayor-elect says he'll start one-on-one meetings with council colleagues immediately. He says a city with a unified vision is a top priority.
Rawlings: We cannot be a great city if we're not unified. Businesses look at us, citizens look at us and say is that a city I want to move to. And they'll move to a city that's unified and positive versus divisive and negative.
Voter Scott Chase celebrated the Rawlings win.
Chase: My hope for Mayor Rawlings is that he will combine a neighborhood focus on small business, but also his vision for large projects, and public private partnerships that will enhance economic development, particularly in Southern Dallas.
Rawlings spent more than two million dollars on his campaign compared to David Kunkle's 250 thousand. Kunkle says he intended to run a low budget, grassroots campaign and has few regrets.
Kunkle: I ran the kind of campaign I wanted to run.
Kunkle supporter Gene Soslow hopes this example of a grassroots campaign leaves voters energized.
Soslow: I think it may inspire people to get more involved and to help change things; get more people involved in all aspects of city governments.
The first big job for the new mayor will be to balance the budget with a 50 million dollar shortfall, and do it in the next three months.