Message sent: Restrain the city budget

The Union Leader looks at Tuesday's election results, and concludes that Manchester voters want to limit spending.

In 2005, voters elected Frank Guinta over Bob Baines, who claimed that people don't mind paying taxes. In 2007, they elected Guinta over Tom Donovan, who wanted to spend more on schools. On Tuesday, by a wide margin, they elected Ted Gatsas over Mark Roy, who advocated higher spending on just about everything.

Voters also approved a charter amendment that will cap city spending and the tax rate, preventing either from rising faster than inflation. What's remarkable about the spending cap victory is that labor unions spent in the neighborhood of $30,000 on a mail, telephone and broadcast campaign to kill it. Still it passed by more than 1,500 votes.

The paper notes that Mayor-Elect Gatsas will be joined by a supermajority of Alderman who opposed the spending cap. Steve Vailancourt looks at the schizophrenic results at Red Hampshire.