Gilbert voters still have one last council seat to decide in the Nov. 8 general election.
Former Council Member Bill Spence, a retired U.S. Navy commander, will run off against political newcomer Bobbi Buchli, a real estate broker.
Final results were released late Wednesday afternoon and council will make it official next week.
Voters elected civil engineer and Council Member Yung Koprowski, sign shop owner Jim Torgeson and business owner Chuck Bongiovanni to three of the four seats.
Turned away was appointed incumbent Scott September, who finished seventh in the nine-candidate field.
Spence said he was honored by the voters who supported him.
“Bobbi Buchli and I have been friends for many years, and I am sure that she was hoping this election would be settled in the primary so she could return to traveling and spending time with her grandchildren,” he said. “I would rather spend the next several months preparing to take office in January.”
Buchli said she was excited but wished she had the votes to “seal the deal” in the primary.
“I’m getting energized again after having a few days of rest waiting for all these numbers to come in,” she said. “I’m excited. I am up to it.”
Koprowski, Spence and September were the targets of some intense negative campaigns, including a series of signs around town with paid-for contact information, required by law, that proved to be dead and untraceable.
Some of the campaign included some false information about voting records, such as Spence voting for an apartment project that he actually voted no on, and campaign contributions to September and Koprowski being mischaracterized as being from developers.
But the results were mixed with Koprowski finishing first, Spence fourth and September seventh.
Koprowski led in the race from first results to last and shrugged off the negative attacks.
"I just kept my head up and was very positive," she said. "I was always honest and authentic, and I think the voters saw that."
For Jim Torgeson, the result will put him on the other side of the dais. The town politics firebrand has frequently sued the town or filed ethics complaints and has spoken before council numerous times.
Torgeson said Council Member Laurin Hendrix convinced him to run though he had misgivings but consenting to run.
“I just see a lot of things that I don’t think are right,” he said. “And I feel there’s not enough drilling down on a subject and people are dismissed.”
Despite his history of challenging officials, Torgeson said he appreciated how his fellow candidates conducted themselves.
“Everybody was generally pretty classy about it,” he said. “A couple people made stupid comments, but not candidates. … Nobody got really personal like [what happened to] Bill Spence two years ago. Everybody went after him in a nasty way, but nobody did it this time.”
Bongiovanni also found the experience to be positive and said he was excited to be elected.
“I really enjoyed the process to be very honest with you, especially talking with citizens and the Chuck chats (an open invitation to citizens to contact him to talk issues),” he said. “I had some great talks.”
The elected candidates are scheduled to take office in January.
Tom Blodgett Senior News Editor | Gilbert @sp_blodgett
Meet Tom Tom Blodgett joined Independent Newsmedia, Inc., USA, in 2022, when the company acquired Community Impact Newspaper's Phoenix-area properties. Raised in Arizona, he has spent more than 35 years in journalism in the state.
Community: He has served as an instructional professional in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication since 2005, and is editorial adviser to The State Press, the university's independent student media outlet. He also is director of operations for an 18U girls fastpitch softball team from Gilbert.
Education: Arizona State University with a BS in Journalism.
Random Fact: He lived in Belgium during his freshman year of high school.
Hobbies: Tweeting enthusiastically about ASU softball (season-ticket holder) and grumpily about other local sports (pessimistic fan).
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