By RUSS OLIVO

WOONSOCKET — Voters chose experience over change as veteran City Council President Leo T. Fontaine handily won the mayor’s race yesterday with 57 percent of the ballot.

The official tally at press time had Fontaine ahead of former state representative and retired police sergeant Todd R. Brien , 3,928-2,917, according to the Board of Canvassers. Though Brien came close to Fontaine at one or two polling stations, Fontaine appears to have won all 16 of them across the city. About 30 percent of the city’s registered voters cast ballots.
Fontaine celebrated with supporters at a packed-to-the-rafters City Side lounge in Market Square, where the mood was raucous and festive as the returns came in. A jazz ensemble played “When the Saints Go Marchin’ In” before Fontaine, flanked by family members and friends, made a victory speech amid a cascade of red balloons falling on him from the ceiling.
“I’m humbled and honored to have won,” said Fontaine. “I promise to do the very best I can to make you proud and make Woonsocket the great city it is.”
Fontaine was accompanied by his wife, Luz Maria, his two children and his mother, on the stage after the returns were posted on a spreadsheet projected onto a wall for all to see. The standing-room-only crowd included current and former city employees, municipal officials, School Committee members, police officers and firefighters.
In one poignant moment, Fontaine choked back a tear and said he wished his late father, Richard Fontaine, were there to see him. The crowd, which had been loudly cheering, “Leo! Leo! Leo!,” quieted down as someone said in a reassuring tone, “He’s here. He’s here.”
Fontaine, 40, who works for a family-owned genealogical research company, has served on the City Council since 1993, much of that time as its president.
For the last several elections, Fontaine has been the top vote-getter in the city, garnering even more votes as a councilman than incumbent Mayor Susan D. Menard.
Fontaine fell short of those record highs last night, but his margin of victory was somewhat larger than Menard’s over Brien in their 2007 contest. Brien, 45, was making his third bid for mayor against Fontaine, having challenged Menard twice previously. Mayor since 1995, Menard is now stepping aside after seven consecutive terms, by far the longest stretch for any chief executive in the history of the city.
Fontaine had often been a foil for the administration for the last couple of years, even spearheading a measure that might prevent the mayor from receiving a benefit that other officials with her tenure have enjoyed in the past: lifetime health benefits at the city’s expense. Still, Menard quietly endorsed Fontaine several days before the election. Former Mayor Francis L. Lanctot, who died last week, also publicly vouched for Fontaine shortly before his death, and former Mayor Charles Baldelli also got behind him.
Fontaine said he would immediately begin working on a transition-in-government plan with Menard. He said he will keep at least two of her department heads, Administration/Public Works Director Michael A. Annarummo and Planning Director Joel Mathews, but he said everyone else is under review. At a debate last week, Fontaine said his first official act would probably be to fire embattled City Solicitor Robert Iuliano.
Fontaine said he would try to nurture of atmosphere of teamwork and cooperation in city government, saying it will take everyone working together to solve the city’s looming financial problems.
“The immediate problem is whether we will be able to make payroll by the end of the year,” said Fontaine. Although the School Committee claims it has erased what was once a projected deficit of roughly $6 million, Fontaine said the city borrowed $5 million in  short-term notes to cover a combined School Department and municipal deficit of some $3.7 million from the year before.
Councilman John Ward, who inherited Fontaine’s longtime mantle as the city’s top vote-getter as he was re-elected last night – the only candidate for any office who topped the 4,000-vote mark - predicted a new era of transparency and teamwork with the incoming administration.
“I think it’s going to change the tone of the discussion to take care of the important things that need to be done, especially in our relations with the state,” said Ward. “Our problems are the state’s problems and we need to work with them to find solutions.”
A 20-year-veteran of the Woonsocket police department, Brien served three terms as a state representative before getting into mayoral politics. He outspent Fontaine to get his message out, playing up his Democratic credentials in a town often thought of as Democrat-friendly. Though local elections are non-partisan, Brien also emphasized Fontaine’s Republican stripes – he’s a former chairman of the Republican State Central Committee.
Brien also hammered away at Fontaine’s support for a supplemental tax bill to cover the $3.2 million deficit the School Department ran up last year. Fontaine, Brien had said, would be the mayor who will tax you twice in one year. Brien and his supporters gathered at Kay’s last night, but he could not be reached for comment by phone after the returns came in.
Fontaine campaigned on his record and experience, saying the times call for a mayor who knows the ropes. He portrayed himself as an honest, trustworthy official who had done his utmost to serve as a watchdog over the Menard administration.
Fontaine said he may not have spent as much on the mayoral campaign as Brien, but he said his strategy was to focus his message on a core group of likely voters and longtime supporters. Basically, Fontaine said, he thinks he won because voters know and trust him.
“I really think it’s the years of service I put in working for the people of the city and people knowing I could be trusted to do the right thing, regardless of the political ramifications,” he said.
Fontaine and all the other officials-elect will be sworn in on Dec. 1.