Judi-ann Rutherford

easily won Tuesday's runoff election for the Post 1 Peachtree City

Council seat, beating opponent Lee Poolman by nearly 3-1 in a nonpartisian

race that some said came down to choosing which candidate had the lesser

conflict if elected.

Just 9.7 percent of

Peachtree City's 19,071 registered voters bothered to cast a ballot

in the runoff, which fell during a holiday week when local schools were

closed and many families were out of town. Tuesday morning's weather,

the coldest so far this season, didn't help matters either.

Rutherford drew 1,179

votes or 64 percent, while Poolman took 657 votes for 36 percent. The

total number of votes cast Tuesday was a third of those in the Nov. 4

election, when Rutherford came within 20 votes of winning a majority outright.

While Rutherford's

runoff victory margin was far more comfortable, Poolman's percent

of the vote remained the same from each election - about 36 percent,

suggesting that Rutherford picked up supporters who voted for the third

candidate in the Nov. 4 election, James J. Aducci.

"It's not

about the vote," Rutherford said Tuesday night as her victory party

wound down. "It's about the issues. We need to focus on what

we need to do to move forward as a city."

"We've had

two years of not making any progress in this town; it's time to make

progress," said Rutherford, who was elected twice to local governing

bodies during 20-plus years living in Sanford, Maine, including a term

on the local school board.

Rutherford's

employment as office manager of the Frederick Brown Jr. Amphitheater had

raised questions of conflict of interest, especially as the on-again,

off-again drama surrounding the Development Authority of Peachtree CIty

and the city's role in taking back management of that facility and

the city tennis center played out. Poolman's conflict involved his

employment as budget systems manager in Fulton County, where Post 3 Councilman

Steve Rapson is budget manager, and in effect Poolman's boss.

Even with the election

over, Rutherford's job status remains cloudy.

Sunday night, City

Council will meet to decide if the city should take on the employees of

the two venues as contract workers through mid-January, when the Peachtree

City Tourism Association could possibly take over.

Rutherford was uncertain

what that would mean for her legally, since persons employed directly

Mayor Steve Brown

has proposed the stop-gap measure to maintain the employees into 2004.

"If they can

meet this Sunday night and get it moving, Steve Brown is showing real

leadership," said Rutherford, who added that she intends to play

no sides on a council that historically has been divided on nearly every

huge issue effecting the city.

Rutherford, who replaces

the retiring Annie McMenamin, and Post 2 Councilman-elect Stuart Kourajian,

who defeated incumbent Dan Tennant on Nov. 4, will be sworn into office

Jan. 8, the first meeting of the new year.