The residents of the new city of Brookhaven chose attorney J. Max Davis as its mayor in a runoff election Dec. 4.

Preliminary results showed Davis leading by approximately 65 percent against opponent Ashford Alliance President Sandy Murray, who trailed with approximately 35 percent.

Before his apparent win, Davis said the next step for him is “building the city immediately.”

“Doing that and making sure we bring the city together after the somewhat contentious cityhood vote,” Davis said.

Candidates for Brookhaven City Council Districts 1, 3 and 4 also faced runoffs.

Small business owner and retired ABC news correspondent Rebecca Chase Williams led the race for Council District 1 with approximately 69 percent, ahead of opponent Kevin Fitzpatrick, who received approximately 30 percent of the vote.

In the closest race of the runoff election, attorney Kevin Quirk received approximately 54 percent of the overall vote. Former Brookhaven Fields Civic Association President Bates Mattison trailed close behind Quirk with approximately 46 percent of the vote.

Pine Hills resident and business owner Joe Gebbia led the race for Council District 4 at approximately 88 percent with opponent Karen Lord garnering approximately 12 percent of the vote.

After November’s election, District 2 Councilman Jim Eyre was the only candidate to receive a clear victory.

Eyre, a board member of the Brookhaven-Peachtree Community Association, received 54.63 percent of the overall vote.

“I can’t tell you how good that feels,” Eyre said. “What I want to do is get up to speed on the Brookhaven Commission report—I’m going to start looking at the reports on the RFPs.”

After Brookhaven residents voted in favor of cityhood during the July 31 general elections, Gov. Nathan Deal appointed a volunteer commission to help ease the formation of a new government.

“They’ve made our task much less daunting by the amount of work they’ve put in,” Davis said of the commission.

Each term of office lasts until 2015 the city will be officially established on Dec. 17.