Suzanne Barrette, left, and Mary Mansour, both poll supervisors, help voters at the polling place at the school hall in Our Lady Queen of Martyrs School in Woonsocket.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

Woonsocket City Council President Leo T. Fontaine was victorious Tuesday in the city’s mayoral election, claiming a margin of 3,928 to 2,917 over retired police officer Todd R. Brien.

“I’m just thrilled, very happy,” Fontaine said as the song “When the Saints Come Marching In” boomed over the speakers in the background. “I’m just looking forward to doing the work.”

And in Central Falls, three-term incumbent Charles D. Moreau cruised to an easy victory over newcomer Hipolito E. Fontes by a vote of 1,541 to 445.

Fontaine, well-known to city voters after eight terms on the Woonsocket City Council and a 2001 stint as Republican state party chairman, was running for mayor for the first time. He topped Brien by 463 votes in the four-way mayoral primary in October, which set up last night’s one-on-one rematch.

He and Brien were seeking to replace Menard, who has been mayor for the last 14 years. She decided not to seek an eighth term.

Municipal elections are nonpartisan in Woonsocket; candidates do not run as members of parties; nor does it have districts or wards for its City Council. Like mayoral candidates, all council candidates run citywide and Fontaine had a long record of success there.

Besides wining eight straight terms since 1993, Fontaine had finished first in fields as large as 14 candidates in every council election since 1997. More people voted for him than Menard or Brien in 2005 and 2007.

Brien, a retired police officer, was no amateur in city politics, having run two citywide campaigns against Menard in 2005 and 2007. She beat him handily in 2005, by more than 2,000 votes, but he cut the margin to 900 in their 2007 rematch.

Moreau, a former project manager at the Central Falls Housing Authority, won a fourth term. Because of a City Charter change approved last year, this term will be four years, not two years as it was previously.

At first it didn’t look like Moreau would even have a race, but Fontes won a spot on the ballot when, represented by the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, he challenged the City Charter’s rules for how candidates petition to get on the ballot. U.S. District Judge William E. Smith last month ordered that Fontes’ name be put on the ballot when he ruled in Fontes’ suit that the parts of the Central Falls Charter on how many mayoral candidate petitions voters could sign were unconstitutional.

The apparent winners of seven candidates in the race for five seats on Jamestown Town Council were Democrats Michael G. White, 1,042; Michael Schnack, 1,000; William H. Murphy, 972; Robert Bowen, 961; and independent Ellen Winsor, 923. Also getting votes were Democrats Robert W. Sutton, 772, and independent Michael F. Smith, 632.

In North Kingstown, voters approved a $10-million sewer bond, 1,729 to 751 with 47 mail ballots still to be counted, which will connect areas in the Post Road and Camp Avenue area. The project will also cover improvements to wastewater treatment facilities in town.

Though some 30 residential properties will be connected, the bulk of the project area covers 205 commercial acres along Post Road. The main objective of the project isto increase the area’s attractiveness as a commercial development zone.

With reports from Richard C. Dujardin

jhill@projo.com