Her victory means this is the first time two women will serve on the law-making board at the same time. "That part hasn't sunk in yet," Wiseman said. "I'm just glad we were able to run a good campaign and it paid off."
Wiseman, 35, with 19,641 votes and Lloyd E. Lewis Jr., 70, with 17,493 - in final, unofficial results - give Democrats a majority on the nonpartisan panel. This is the first time the five-member body will have three blacks who won seats in regular elections. (In 1994, Dean Lovelace won a special election and served about six weeks with former Mayor Richard Clay Dixon and Commissioner Idotha Bootsie Neal.)
Republican Abner Orick, 58, who has been on the commission off and on since 1979, is off again. He collected 15,340 votes. The other Republican candidate, Mike Osgood, 37, trailed the pack with 13,633, and lost his second commission bid.
"We would have liked to get a clean sweep," Montgomery County Democratic Party Chairman Dennis Lieberman said, "but the mayor is just a ceremonial position and the fact is, we control the commission."
Wiseman, a partner in the law firm Faruki Gilliam & Ireland, wowed candidate-night crowds with her cries for more cheerleaders on the commission who can dare Columbus to reject Dayton's funding pleas. She called for upgrading such basic services as trash pickup, 911 service, snow removal and community-based policing.
Lewis, a retired DP&L employee who served as an assistant Dayton city manager and Plan Board president, used improving basic city services as the keystone of his campaign.
"I still will be a consensus maker," he said. "I still will be seeking the very best for my constituents."
Winning a City Commission seat means Lewis must give up the state representative seat he won in 1994. The Ohio Democratic Caucus selects a replacement recommended by the local Democratic Party.
[A DIFFERENT VERSION OF THIS STORY APPEARED IN THE VALLEY EDITION, Q.V.]