Christian Price elected mayor; council seats filled

Mayoral candidate Christian Price, who had 60 percent of the 3,851 votes counted Tuesday night, said he was “ecstatic” that he was the likely winner over City Councilman Carl Diedrich.

“I had a really tough competitor,” he said. “I still haven’t realized it as a victory yet because the votes from City Hall haven’t been counted yet.”

In the race for the three city council seats, Bridger Kimball declared himself the top finisher with 29 percent of the 8,787 votes cast. Kimball lost in the 2010 city council race by 39 votes.

“We worked a lot harder this time around,” he said. “We had a lot of community involvement and they stood behind me. We focused on name recognition and getting involved in the community.”

An estimated 100 to 150 ballots dropped off in a box at Maricopa City Hall have to be transported to the Pinal County Elections Office in Florence Wednesday morning. City Clerk Vanessa Bueras, charged with running city elections, said Tuesday’s totals did not include any of the ballots cast on Tuesday.

Price said his strong finish was a group effort.

“A lot of people worked really hard on my campaign,” said Price, who is president of the Maricopa Meadows HOA.

He was with his family and about 20 campaign volunteers at a friend’s house in Maricopa Meadows Tuesday night.

Price said his first task will be to shadow the current mayor, Anthony Smith, so he can “hit the ground running” when he takes office in June.

“I need to get more information and then lay out the priorities in my platform,” he said.

Campaign volunteer Peggy Chapados, who is on the board of The Villages HOA, said she was pleased Price won, and voters had good choices for mayor.

“We had two people who were in it to win it,” she said.

Diedrich was at The Native New Yorker, as were council candidates Kimball and Leon Potter.

“I feel we ran a good race,” he said. “We didn’t attack the opponent.”

Diedrich said he will support Price as mayor and looks forward to working with him until his term ends in June.

Diedrich said he was prepared to spend the time it takes to be mayor, but will now spend that time to consider others possibilities.

He declined to be specific, but said “it might be business or it might be politics.”

Tuesday night, Kimball reiterated a promise he announced at a candidate forum in January to donate his first-year salary as a council member to charity. He said he likely would split the pay between three local charities, but did not name them.

He said economic development is his first priority on council.

“The city is doing an audit of the development department and I want to take those results and bring more business to Maricopa,” he said.