By Paul Kaplan / Staff

OK, Jere Wood wins re-election as mayor of Roswell. So now what?

After a tough campaign and a narrow victory in last week’s runoff, Wood ventured an answer to that question on election night. He said he didn’t think Roswell’s direction “will change at all.”

That may in fact be the case for Wood, who gets to be Roswell’s king for four more years. Wood never changes very much anyway. He was cantankerous, sharp, fun loving, tough and a lightning rod for controversy when he was elected 12 years ago, and he still is. For the other 99,999 or so residents of Roswell, however, there could be plenty of change.

CHANGE IS IN THE AIR

Consider:

* A City Council leader on redevelopment and mixed-use issues, and one of its most fiscally conservative voices – Lori Henry – is gone.

* The Council’s most centrist member, and a frequent voice of calm and reason – David Tolleson – is gone.

* Another fiscal conservative on Council – Kent Igleheart – was re-elected by just 12 votes. He’s a newlywed with a blossoming career as an actor, and he was leaning toward vacating his seat until his opponent started slamming him over financial problems he’d run into years ago following a divorce. Igleheart got mad and got even by staying in the race and whipping his opponent, Jim Pollak. So Igleheart keeps his seat, but we’ll have to wait and see if his heart is in it.

* Two Council members – Rich Dippolito and Becky Wynn – supported Tolleson in the mayor’s race and Pollak in the Council race. They lost both bets, and in the process crossed the two savviest politicians on the board in Wood and Igleheart. Somewhere down the line, this could end poorly for them.

* It is unusual in municipal politics for rookie candidates to make endorsements in other Council races. But somebody talked first-time candidate Nancy Diamond into endorsing Tolleson and Pollak. Diamond won her election, but both of her endorsees lost, so she may have marginalized herself even before she takes her seat in January.

* Tolleson’s campaign tapped into East Roswell’s yearning for a mayor from that side of town, which it has never had. It was an effective strategy that got Tolleson into the runoff, but it was divisive for the city. The massive East Roswell vote for Tolleson in the primary helped spur a strong West Roswell response for Wood in the runoff. Going forward, watch for major issues to be viewed through an east-versus-west prism. It could take years to bring both sides of town back together as one.

* Fulton County is projecting a 15 percent drop in the assessed value of commercial and residential properties in 2010. That means cities like Roswell, which rely on property taxes and (plummeting) sales tax revenues to fund operations, will basically have three choices: raise property taxes, which Wood vowed during the campaign not to do; continue to spend the taxpayers’ emergency reserves; or significantly cut spending, including possibly downsizing the city government. None of those are what you’d call quality options.

So the headline was “Wood Wins Re-election,” which does sound like Roswell won’t “change at all,“ as Wood put it. But in reality, the opposite could be true – just about everything could change.

THE “NEW” ROSWELL COUNCIL: OXES WILL BE GORED

The Council leadership will certainly change, with Henry and Tolleson gone. The alliances will change, which means the politics will change, which means the attitudes toward growth and other quality-of-life issues could change. And the spending levels will almost certainly change, perhaps dramatically, which means oxes will be gored.

It will be fun to revisit the endorsement scorecard after the budget comes in. Compare the priorities of Dippolito, Wynn and Diamond, who bet on the wrong horses, as opposed to two other members of Council – the veteran Jerry Orlans and the newcomer Betty Price – who observed political protocol and avoided endorsements, even though both were perceived to be supporters of Wood. See if their priorities are ascendant, especially for the newcomer Price.

IGLEHEART HAS THE LAST LAUGH, LORI HENRY HAS THE LAST WORD

For you political conspiracy theorists out there, the fun is just beginning, because what’s potentially lining up already is an alliance of three pols on one side and three on the other. Does that sound at all familiar?

And here’s the punch line. Igleheart becomes the swing vote under that scenario.

That used to be Tolleson’s position, and he sometimes used it deftly. He also had a low-key demeanor that kept the tension level down on hot issues.

Igleheart is completely different. He’s a provocateur and occasionally a hothead – but he’s also got a populist streak, channeling his anger toward those who prioritize commercial interests over those of the citizens. When next year’s budget debate takes place – and it’s going to be a doozy in this economy – Igleheart will be a leading voice for making the cuts needed to avoid tax hikes and deficit spending.

Henry would have stood with him, but she relinquished her seat for her failed run for mayor.

But Henry did not go away quietly. She won 28 percent of the vote in the mayoral primary, and her supporters were passionate about her fiscal conservatism, her issue-oriented campaign and her standing as the first female to seriously contend to become mayor of a city that is more than a century and a half old.

Interestingly, none of the three women still standing on Council – Wynn, Price and Diamond – supported Henry’s mayoral bid. Both Price and Diamond won with huge vote margins, and if either of them had supported Henry, Roswell might have had its first female mayor.

But Henry had the last word, because her supporters held the keys to the mayor’s office in the extremely tight runoff.

The truth is, Henry didn’t much care for either Wood or Tolleson, especially after both of them voted for the current budget, which spends $1.2 million more than the city expected to take in. Wood won Henry’s endorsement – and the mayor’s seat – after promising Henry that he would revisit the budget at mid-year and push for cuts if the city was again facing deficits.

ALPHA MALES

Igleheart also endorsed Wood in the runoff, but that does not mean he’s a Wood supporter. In fact, they have a long-held disdain for one another, due largely to a sharp personality conflict and a shared hyper-competitiveness. Both men have said they’d probably get along great if they weren’t so much alike in certain ways.

­But Igleheart dislikes Tolleson even more than he dislikes Wood, so he backed Wood in the runoff. Hollywood’s best minds could not have conjured up a more bizarre scene than Igleheart and Wood standing side-by-side at a press conference at City Hall, with Igleheart endorsing a man he genuinely dislikes over another man who repulses him even more.

It’s a wonderfully wacky place, Roswell. It almost makes you wish Wood was right, that nothing “will change at all” now that he’s been re-elected.

If only it were so.