By Cathy Salustri

By 7:15 Tuesday night, the votes were counted and the celeb-ration at Habana Café was already underway: local CPA David Hast-ings had won the Ward One city council seat by a slim margin.
Hastings edged out incumbent Judy Ryerson by 12 votes.
The end of a campaign marked with mudslingling, sign stealing, and undercurrents of nastiness came as a great relief to the Hastings campaign.
“I want to thank everybody who supported me. It took a lot of effort by a lot of people and I hope I can live up to everybody’s expectations. We’re going to have a different city council. I think it’s going to be a positive city council. It’s going to be a positive city from now on; let’s make Gulfport the city that we all love,” Hastings told his supporters.
His wife, Jo Gonzalez-Hastings, chose not to sugarcoat her sentiments.
“I want to personally thank David Steinke and his minions for handing this election to my husband,” she told The Gabber as Hastings’ campaign manager tried to get her attention. She waved him off and kept talking.
Gonzalez-Hastings referred to anonymous packets of information and veiled as well as not-so-veiled references to her husband’s past and his business dealings, information many suspect but none could confirm came from the Steinke camp. In interviews with this reporter, Steinke did make veiled references to Hastings’ character.
“I hope they have learned once and for all that Gulfport is not about negativity. When you run for public office you are running for the good of the community, not the wants of the few,” Gonzalez-Hastings said.
Buoyed by the victory as well, Hastings and his wife said, the relief of the end of the campaign, the mood at the celebration was jubilant. Hastings’ campaign manager, Brad Rogers, teased Hastings about bringing down the average height on council (Rogers is rather tall while Hastings is rather short) and Hastings, in turn, thanked Rogers for walking his dogs as part of his campaign management efforts.
Hastings won with 500 votes; Ryerson received 488. 317 voters chose David Steinke and 305 showed their support for Stanley Solomons. Roz Barbieri received 172 votes.