Though nearly all of the city's councilors ran unopposed, the two who faced challengers held on to their seats with convincing victories in yesterday's elections. Newcomer Mike DelloIacono topped two other candidates for one of the at-large seats, but Councilors Dan St. Hilaire and Keith Nyhan finished with the largest leads in an election where just over 10 percent of voters turned out at the city polls.

In the four-way, at-large race, St. Hilaire finished with more than double the votes any of the other three earned, DelloIacono included. And in Ward 7, Nyhan won four times as many votes as challenger Steve Sawyer.

"What we've been doing is watching the budget, making sure we take care of taxpayers, and I think the citizens of Concord appreciate that," St. Hilaire said by phone last night, taking a break from celebrating with several other councilors at Mayor Jim Bouley's house. "I think even before Election Day, you saw that a lot of the seats were uncontested. I tend to view that as people in general being satisfied with the direction the city's taking."

St. Hilaire - who is the former Merrimack County attorney - thanked voters for awarding him a second term.

"In return, I'm going to be vigilant on the council in keeping the tax rate down, keeping focused on making Concord a great place to live," he said.

Nyhan, who will serve a third term, said he viewed his victory as "a pretty good endorsement of what I've done and what people think I will continue to do."

As the chairman of the solid waste committee, which recommended the city move forward with a pay-as-you-throw trash program, "you wonder how much support you're compromising or losing because of those decisions," Nyhan said. "I never questioned if what I was doing was right, because the numbers were working out."

Sawyer, who has said he opposed pay-as-you-throw, did not return a phone call last night. He earned 95 votes to Nyhan's 383.

After St. Hilaire, who carried 2,381 votes in the citywide at-large race, DelloIacono finished in a distant second, winning 1,153 votes. It was enough to beat Jim Baer, who earned 1,042 votes, and Rick Cibotti, who came in fourth with 792.

"I'm very happy, very excited," said DelloIacono, who runs a web design firm. "From what I understood, people understood where I was coming from, what I was saying."

Baer, a retiree who campaigned on a promise to keep taxes down, said he was "delighted" St. Hilaire and DelloIacono won and pleased with his own finish.

"I don't feel too badly. I've never run for public office, and I think for the first time out that's a pretty good showing," said Baer, who finished in second place in Wards 1, 6, 8, 9 and 10. "Clearly there are some people who agree with me on certain issues."

Cibotti did not return a call last night.

Besides DelloIacono, the other newcomer to the council in January will be Amanda Grady, who ran unopposed in Ward 4.

Like Councilor Douglas Black, whose decision not to seek re-election left an at-large seat up for grabs, Ward 4 Councilor Dick Lemieux decided not to run.

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