ROCKLAND – In a unanimous vote on Monday evening, the Rockland City Council elected Valli Geiger to serve as mayor for the next year. Geiger was sworn in along with Lisa Westkaemper during an organizational meeting on November 20. Both were victors in the Nov. 7 election.

Geiger is now serving her second term as a city councilor and this will be Westkaemper’s first term.

Westkaemper said it feels great to be elected.

"It was a very interesting campaign," she said. "I met a lot of really interesting people and I learned a great deal. I look forward to the next three years because I think I'm going to learn something everyday."

Geiger explained her feelings about being elected mayor.

"It's pretty weird," she said. "I never set out in my life to be a politician and my husband said that I'm going to be mayor of this city, and it was like yeah, I guess that's true. I hope that we can have a good year."

Geiger shared her thoughts on the election.

"I always feel bad for the person who loses," she said. "I won by a whisker and Greg Mason clearly worked really hard and wanted to serve the city. It's always sad when someone wants to serve and they can't. I wrote to him and it's true that anybody who wants to serve in any capacity, I believe that we should open the doors and make sure that there's a committee that they are called for and we make room for. "