ODESSA, Texas — The city of Odessa has a new mayor. That much was a guarantee when David Turner's term was up. In steps Javier Joven, a former city council member who defeated another former council member in Dewey Bryant in this year's runoff election.
After a November election in which Bryant and Joven were separated by only three points, Joven ran away with the runoff election, securing just over 63 percent of the vote.
When asked about all the hard work and excitement of the moment, Joven made sure to thank all of the volunteers for his campaign for all the hard work that was put in to this election.
"Very excited for all of our volunteers, our hard workers throughout this campaign. My excitement, my emotions, my cup runneth over, and it’s for them. They have worked so hard. They believed in the campaign, they believed in the platform, and it’s been a community platform. They believed in change, they asked for change, and it starts tonight," Joven said.
Two other Odessa seats went into a runoff election as well. City council district one and city council at-large. Mark Matta won the runoff over Michael Shelton for district one while Denise Swanner took the at-large position over former Odessa mayor David Turner.