PROVO -- John Curtis is the next mayor.

Curtis, the executive vice president of Action Target, beat state Rep. Steve Clark by 577 votes and a margin of 6 percent in a race with 18 percent voter turnout.

It was a stressful night for both men; Curtis said they spent the evening watching election results, which early on favored Clark.

"Most of the night we were just watching to see if we would be able to catch him," he said.

Catch him Curtis did. They stayed fairly even as numbers trickled in, but Curtis slowly pulled ahead and then retained the lead. Clark, who spent the evening with his family watching the results, did not return phone calls to the Daily Herald Tuesday night, but he did call Curtis to congratulate him.

Now, with victory following a year-long campaign behind him, Curtis has a new challenge on which to focus: being the mayor.

"The most important thing for me for the next two months is to unify the city and try to repair some of the divisiveness that's occurred in some of the campaigns," he said.

He declined to give specifics on the ideas he had for that goal, but he did say he wanted the people who did not vote for him to know he represented them as well and he is prepared to listen to their concerns.

Curtis and council candidates Laura Cabanilla, Rick Healey and Sterling Beck have been loosely allied in that their signs frequently were in the same yards and businesses, all were endorsed by the Utah County Realtors Association, and all have been linked to others through people campaigning for them.

This is not, however, a coup of the Provo city government. Curtis said people should not worry or expect drastic changes to the progress the city has made. They can expect open minds and city employees who listen, he said.

"Let me tell you what you shouldn't expect," he said. "There is no agenda to radically change the things in our city."

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