Voters bounced City Commissioner Doug Compton from office Tuesday night, but even a fifth-place finish couldn't stop him from grabbing the spotlight one last time.
"You know how people who win always say they're going to Disney World? Well, that's what I'm doing," Compton said. "I'm taking my wife and kids to Disney World.
"I'm serious. ... We're outta here."
Compton, who edged incumbent Bob Schumm out of office two years ago, found himself among three commission candidates cast aside by Lawrence voters Tuesday.
The third-place finisher in 1993 ended up fifth this time, with 3,743 votes. That's nearly 1,300 votes behind this year's third-place vote-getter, Allen Levine, who rode a wave of support for older neighborhoods and changing the city's human relations ordinance to protect homosexuals from discrimination.
"The human relations ordinance was a bigger issue than I thought it was," said Compton, who opposed changing the ordinance, "but I'll go to bed knowing I did the right thing."
Mayor Jo Andersen said she had advised Compton to support Simply Equal's push to change the ordinance, but to no avail.
"He would have won, because he's been a good commissioner on everything else," she said.
Compton, president of First Management Inc., said he was proud of the difference he'd made for Lawrence residents during the past two years: a master plan for parks and recreation, a storm water management plan, 1,500 new jobs created, public investments in downtown and infrastructure improvements in East Lawrence and North Lawrence.
"Lawrence, Kansas, is a better place today than it was two years ago, and I'm proud that I was a part of that," he said.
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