The results are in.
Satish Hiremath earned 30 more votes than Mike Zinkin. Satish is the Mayor-elect of Oro Valley. The margin of victory was razor thin. It's .2% of the votes cast of the 15,000 votes cast.
This aint' no landslide. It's a very narrow victory. Therein, lies the problem.
The challenge that Mayor-Elect Hiremath faces is daunting. He didn't win a mandate. In fact, it's quite the opposite. He inherits a divided constituency. Half the people didn't vote for him.
If Satish thinks that he simply needs to move forward with his agenda without considering the needs of all the people of Oro Valley, then he is sadly mistaken. Most who didn't vote for him, for good or bad reasons, think that he used special interests to buy the election.
For Mayor-Elect Hiremath to move forward, headstrong, without considering the needs of all of our people, and, yes, the needs of special interests too, would be a tragic mistake. It will mark four long years as Mayor.
We urge him to become the leader of all of us.
We will not make the situation worse. WE will start with a position of support for his success and the success of our new Council, because therein lines our success.
