Mayor-elect Frank Cownie campaigned on the promise to turn Des Moines’ street lights back on. To keep the city on track, his biggest challenge will be rewiring the elements that aren’t working without short-circuiting what’s powering the city.

We supported Chris Hensley because of the 10 years experience she has as a City Council member and because we believe in her pragmatic approach to tackling the city’s problems.

We do however, think highly of Cownie and his record of independent thinking. And we have faith in the collective wisdom of Des Moines’ voters.

Cownie is a businessman, and that fact alone garners him some credibility with us. In two years as a city councilman, he’s proved he isn’t afraid to go against the current. We appreciate that ability.

The challenges Cownie faces have been well publicized, but that makes them no less difficult. Chief among them is money. Rather than shaking down residents and business owners for more cash, we would prefer our government to become more efficient while striving to grow the city’s tax base.

In this, Cownie is going to have some problems. He has opposed the idea (in its current form) of a merger of the city and Polk County governments. Overall, his campaign was short on ideas to balance the budget, including honest talk to city workers about what life will be like in an environment in which tax receipts are falling.

This issue could pose Cownie with his first significant roadblock. The City Council had few options available when it voted to turn off some of the city’s street lights. It will be interesting, to say the least, to watch Cownie dance between the interests of the unions who brought him to power and actually delivering on one of the few tangible promises he made.

Though she has been pilloried for it, Hensley thinks that city workers should share the burden of health insurance, a reasonable request, we think, given that most private-sector workers do the same. Government at all levels is out of step with the private sector in full funding of benefits.

Despite Des Moines’ financial problems, the mayor-elect has inherited a city that is moving in the right direction. There is more development happening now than at any point in history. The Principal Riverwalk, Science Center of Iowa, the Iowa Events Center and projects will improve our quality of life and help woo more people downtown.

As mayor, Cownie needs to make sure Des Moines continues to carry clout at the Statehouse, a place where rural lawmakers hold a disproportionate number of committee chairs and are growing increasingly hostile to the capital city.

Des Moines also faces competition for development dollars from its suburbs. More than 65,000 workers commute downtown each day. If the goal is to make Des Moines stronger, that number has to grow.