Former Haymarket Town Council member David Leake is heading back to the council after defeating appointed incumbent Sterling Brinson in a special election Tuesday night to fill the seated vacated by Susan Edwards after her 2010 resignation.

Leake won 49 votes to Brinson's 18. Write-in votes accounted for 31, the majority of which went toward David Brooks Jr. of Greenhill Crossing. According to Leake, he campaigned much harder than he did when he lost his seat in 2010, even going so far as to pick up a voter registration database from Richmond so he could identify voters that participated in the last election in May.

From there, he either called them on the phone or knocked on their doors to meet them in person, Leake said, adding that his fliers included an endorsement from Gainesville District Supervisor John Stirrup (R).

Leake also had campaign signs up on the Town Center property and he mentioned that he stayed at the PACE West polling site all day from 6 a.m. until it closed at 7 p;m. Tuesday.

Because of how close he lost his last race after narrowly winning in 2008, he stressed the idea that every vote can actually count in a low-turnout election. Indeed, according to the Virginia State Board of Elections' unofficial results, 98 voters participated in total.

When he discussed issues with voters, "I heard it from A to Z," said Leake, highlighting the appearance of the town in general to how eminent domain "quick grabs" are set to devalue certain properties along Washington Street.

"I just want to get the concern that the little guy was getting recognized," said Leake.

Leake explained that during his one term on council, he did not think he spoke enough when he had ideas, instead being "polite" enough to defer to others too often.

Now, he's proposing bringing back a chaplain for an invocation at the start of town council meetings, creating an organization assessment group to evaluate efficiency with the town government and cutting the real estate tax. He would accomplish the latter by contributing surplus money from the meals tax into the general fund to make up for the lost revenue.

The 4 percent meals tax was designed strictly to raise money to finance the Street Scape project. Since its implementation, it has also been used to pay for infrastructure.

As for exact numbers, Leake did not have any proposals.

"I'm kind of looking into that," he said.

Brooks, a former president of the Greenhill Crossing Homeowners Association, began his campaign on Friday though rather reluctantly as he did not actively campaign for the job. He instead said that if fellow residents wanted him to be an alternate to Leake and Brinson, then he would be willing to fulfill that role.

"I'm incredibly flattered by the response and I wouldn't really be able to project what it was that people saw," said Brooks. "It'll be something that I'll be thinking about for a long time."

He did not specify whether he would run for town council in the future, saying, "It might be the type of thing I might want to research more thoroughly."

As for Brinson, council member Mary Lou Scarbrough said she plans to work on an idea he floated of bringing a youth organization like a Boys and Girls Club to Haymarket.

"I would like to (continue) pursuing that," said Scarbrough.