Steve Dallas in as Carmel mayor, Bobby Richards and Jan Reimers for council.

For a town with a reputation for sleepiness, Carmel was very much awake Tuesday night, when victorious City Council candidates and their supporters gathered for a Champagne toast at about 10pm at Cypress Inn. Cheers could be heard from down the block.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to have your constituents support you,” says Carmel’s mayor-elect, Steve Dallas. “It’s time for change.”

Dallas, who’s mid-way through his first term on City Council, challenged his colleague Ken Talmage to replace mayor Jason Burnett. Talmage has been on council 10 years and his campaign fund was bolstered by a $10,000 gift from Burnett’s campaign committee, but it wasn’t enough to defeat Dallas, who rallied support from the business community and campaigned on a platform of transparency and change.

Semi-official election results after the polls closed April 9 show Dallas with 55 percent of the vote, or 615 votes to Talmage’s 502.

When the semi-official results were announced around 9:30pm, Talmage had left the city-hosted election night party at City Hall. The remaining guests, Dallas supporters, cheered loudly.

In the five-way race for two seats, Jan Reimers and Bobby Richards clinched clear victories, earning 33 and 27 percent of the vote, respectively. Third-place candidate Richard Kreitman received 17 percent of the vote.

When Dallas moves to the mayor’s seat, he’ll leave behind the remainder of his term, meaning there will be a third new face.

After the new council is sworn in, they’ll establish a process for appointing a replacement, an interview process historically conducted by the mayor and vice-mayor. Dallas says he’ll wait to see who applies before naming contenders.

Richards will leave a vacancy on the Community Activities and Cultural Commission, and Reimers will leave a vacancy on the Planning Commission; new commissioners will be appointed by City Council.