The bitter power struggle over the mayor's office and three town council seats in Boones Mill yielded mixed results Tuesday night. Mayor E.V. "Ben" Flora won re-election, as did one of his incumbent council supporters, Dale Fisher.

But one of the challenging slate, Sara Eames, won a council seat. The race for the third council seat ended in a three-way tie, and will be decided soon by drawing lots.

Although the slate of challengers had issued the rallying cry, "All four one or none of us at all," Eames said she plans to take office even if she alone turns out to be a winner. "What that meant was that you should elect all of us, not that we wouldn't serve if all of us didn't win."

Flora won by a vote of 40 to 38 over Robert Hogan. "It was closer than I thought it would be," said Flora, who vowed to cooperate with Eames. And well he might, because the pending drawing holds a 66 percent chance that she will be joined on the council by another challenger.

The three-way tie is among incumbent Richard Miller, and all-or-none challengers Virginia Carroll and Patricia Hogan.

Flora said, "I know people here are tired of Boones Mill government being known as 'squabbling,' so I hope we can stop that and move forward."

None of the challengers is new to the town's politics. The Hogans and Eames resigned from the council in March 2007 after the council's refusal to fire the police chief, Lynn Frith, who has been an off-and-on subject of council ire and debate for more than a decade. Their resignations came after Frith issued a ticket to Robert Hogan. And that came after a council majority had asked Frith to issue speeding tickets for drivers going 10 mph or more over the speed limit. Frith had traditionally only issued tickets to drivers going 15 mph or more over the speed limit.

Neither challengers nor incumbents talked about Frith on Tuesday night. Flora said his priority is economic development, and Fisher and Eames agreed.

"I can work with anybody," Eames said.

Bill Cooper, Franklin County elections supervisor, said the 78 votes cast are a record 50 percent turnout of registered voters in Boones Mill.