To the editor:

A new mayor was elected in Sunset Hills with just under 44 percent of the vote.

This means 56 percent of voters had other preferences. Why is this not noteworthy of local journalists’ attention? How often does such a thing occur on any level of politics?

Since 2008, the number of female elected officials in the city of Sunset Hills has grown from one to four. That’s a 300 percent increase. Again, how often does such a thing occur?

In 2008, Mr. Bill Nolan was an active supporter of now Mayor Emeritus Mike Svoboda. There is photographic proof of this.

He changed his mind two years later and ran for mayor himself. This is historical fact and new history has been made with his election.

Mary Ann Hunzeker, wife of Mayor Emeritus John Hunzeker, thinks Mayor Emeritus Svoboda has mischaracterized the Sunset Hills electorate by his saying they were fooled by Mayor Nolan during the campaign.

Factually, not all of them were won over by Mr. Nolan as a mayoral candidate. Fifty-six percent of them voted for other candidates. This is what is significant because it is the challenge Mayor Nolan faces.

I can empathize with Mrs. Hunzeker’s emotions because her husband lost to my husband.

Two years of hard work as mayor for a nominal salary and all the expense of waging one or more campaigns is rough when the results don’t come as you hoped.

My husband, as anyone who knows him well would say, has the good will of many people and thus he is not bitter; he just didn’t want to leave a job he loved.

He will continue to be involved in Sunset Hills history. It is comforting to me that I can share how it was to be a mayor’s wife with Mary Nolan, who has reached out to me all along. I did not have the same chance for a relationship with Mary Ann Hunzeker, and this is part of the heartbreak of politics.

But as her and many other people’s alderman, my wish is that we focus on something I think most of us can agree on — civil defense and emergency planning — which have direct bearing on the quality of life for all of us, and which could determine our future history, based on our ability to come back after a natural disaster.

Claudia Svoboda

Sunset Hills

Editor’s note: Mrs. Svoboda, who last week took the oath of office as a Ward 4 alderman for the city of Sunset Hills, is married to former Mayor Mike Svoboda.