ELYRIA — Mayor Bill Grace will take a break from campaigning for his own future to focus on the future needs of Elyria, a city that will face hard times in 2010, he said.

While it’s easy to say Grace should feel politically rejuvenated coming off a 58 percent to 42 percent win in Tuesday’s recall election, according to unofficial results, Grace said he is thinking about next year for the city — not the year 2011 when he will be up for re-election.

“We have a lot going on next year — the budget, contract negotiations — and we will still have revenue problems to deal with,” he said.

The recall weighed heavily on Grace’s mind in recent weeks, but he said he also couldn’t let it preoccupy his thoughts because he knew Elyria would still need a plan to move forward. And, now that the city can do so with the same mayor that was elected to serve in 2007, Grace said he is more committed than ever to getting the right information to residents.

“This has shown me that there is a lot of misinformation out there,” he said. “So even though we will have revenue problems next year, we will also have to find the money to better communicate with residents. I have heard it over and over again from the 2015 process that we have to do a better job of informing residents.”

The city’s first test of its new plan to communicate better with residents will come when it moves from traditional trash collection to a new automated system in the coming months. Residents will be asked to adjust to a new system that uses carts that are picked up by an automated arm that will swing out from a truck operated by one person.

Not to mention, Grace said there will be a lot of discussion in the next six months to determine what kind of tax initiative voters will see on the November ballot.

“A lot has to happen this year,” Grace said. “My campaign won’t start until at least a year from now.”

Still, there is no doubt that Grace is thinking about running for a fourth term. With the margin of victory he secured Tuesday night being nearly 2½ times the margin he garnered in the 2007 general election, he can see support for another run is there.

In the 2007 general election, Grace won his third term by 452 votes over challenger Tim Quinn. In that election, the city saw a 28 percent voter turnout and 8,748 votes were cast in the mayor’s race.

Months earlier during the 2007 primary election, Grace’s margin of victory over Democrat challenger Holly Brinda was less — just 533 votes.

His victory in 2007 was nothing like the overwhelming support he received in 2003. During that year’s general election Grace faced off against Republican challenger Tom Pallardy. There was high voter turnout for that election and 13,563 votes were cast in the mayor’s race. Grace was victorious at that time as well snatching up 4,309 more votes than Pallardy.

According to the board of elections, 7,387 voters cast ballots in Tuesday’s recall vote.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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