New voice in New Bern

Lee Bettis, the lawyer who first made a name for himself in New Bern as a defender of Trent River rights, has defeated four-term mayor Tom Bayliss to claim the city’s top job.

Bettis garnered 56.7 percent, or 2,511 of the votes cast in Tuesday’s runoff against the veteran mayor, while Bayliss claimed 43.18 percent, or 1,911 of the votes, according to unofficial numbers from the Craven County Board of Elections.

But Bettis didn’t need official numbers to celebrate. He and his supporters gathered for a bash at the Harvey Mansion downtown, the same place he was last month when the results of the municipal election came in and he knew he could ask for a runoff.

“I feel like the work is just beginning,” Bettis said Tuesday night in the middle of a crowd of about 100 people.

“We have a vision for the way things should be done, and we are excited, happy and glad to serve the public,” Bettis said. “It wasn’t me who did this. It was the town who did this.”

His election further magnifies the near-total turnover of the New Bern Board of Aldermen, which will have only one surviving incumbent come January, Dana Outlaw.

Though Bayliss got the most votes of any candidate in the Oct. 6 mayoral race, he garnered only 48.5 percent of the vote then, and not the “50 percent plus one” required in New Bern to make a runoff an impossibility.

Bettis immediately called for a runoff and hired political consultant Dawn Gibson, who had helped Victor Taylor take down veteran alderman Robert Raynor in the city’s 2nd Ward.

Soon, his campaign kitty was padded, too, largely because of a $16,000 contribution from the family of New Bern developer Patrick McCullough.

Bettis and his supporters were tireless on the trail, hosting barbecues and rallies at the Farmers Market, turning up at nearly daily meet-and-greets, and organizing trolley tours of New Bern during which he stumped at every stop.

By Tuesday afternoon, Bettis, who is known for being boisterous and even “theatrical,” was eerily reserved.

“It’s just calm,” he said. “We have done the hard work, we have stuck to the issues, and either way, New Bern has won in this historic election.”

Early voting was crucial for Bettis, and by the end of it Saturday, 1,720 people had voted in the mayoral runoff. When early-voting totals came in Tuesday night, Bettis had claimed 60 percent of those votes to Bayliss’ 40 percent.

Bayliss, meanwhile, had said he would be “counting down the hours” until the end of the most challenging campaign season he has ever endured.

When it was over, he said three words: “Free at last.”

Bayliss portrayed himself as the candidate of truth throughout the campaign, and accused Outlaw of being the mastermind behind a political machine that included Bettis, Sabrina Bengel and Denny Bucher. Outlaw was re-elected, while Bengel and Bucher ousted incumbents Julius Parham and Max Freeze to get seats on the New Bern Board of Aldermen.

Bayliss, who turned 65 on Tuesday, said the majority of his campaign efforts were spent combating “misinformation” and telling people why he supported projects like replacing the Alfred Cunningham Bridge, building the $4 million city pool and New Bern’s purchase of property in James City.

As the runoff date neared, Bayliss made a decision not to watch voter returns at the Craven County Board of Elections office for the first time in 16 years. Instead, after presiding over an unusually scheduled meeting of the aldermen, Bayliss went home to hear results with his family and close supporters. He said he would not be surprised if Bettis won.

“You know, I can only offer myself up,” Bayliss said. “And they either want me or they want somebody else. And they wanted somebody else.”

That’s not to say that the relationship between Lee Bettis and New Bern has always been a love fest.

In late 2007, Bettis made a name for himself in the city when he became the spokesman for a group formed to stop the long-term rental of boat slips at the then-Sheraton, now Hilton, marina.

New Bern Citizens for Water Access and Recreational Environments, commonly called New Bern AWARE, asked the state to investigate who owns the rights to a Trent River easement near the hotel. The group contended that the easement belonged to the city, not a business.

But Bettis says that issue, for him, still hasn’t been resolved.

But before he gets to that, he’ll focus on being part of the effort to pick New Bern’s next, “absolutely brilliant,” city manager.

Bettis will be sworn in as mayor in December.

Nikie Mayo can be reached at 252-635-5665 or nmayo@freedomenc.com.

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New Bern mayor

Lee Bettis 2,511

Tom Bayliss 1,911