Sandy voters - 40 percent of them showed up at the ballot box Tuesday - were split, 53 percent to 47 percent, on what was best for a 107-acre gravel pit and who is best to run this town. When all the votes were counted, the answer: big-box stores and incumbent Mayor Tom Dolan.

Dolan recognizes the significance of that division.

"I'm looking forward to pulling those factions back together," he said Wednesday.

And Real Salt Lake's plans for a 25,000-seat Major League Soccer stadium, some argue, may provide the perfect opportunity to do that.

"I wonder how this may be applied as a lesson for how to proceed with the soccer stadium and other economic development," said Dolan's challenger, Gary T. Forbush.

Forbush ran up 9,558 votes Tuesday (compared to Dolan's 10,811) largely on a campaign that Dolan did not listen to the residents who don't want a big-box development at an out-of-use gravel pit. Forbush often argued - as did Save Our Communities, a residents group that nearly stopped the project with Tuesday's zoning referendum - that Dolan and his staff had signed off on all of The Boyer Co.'s plans long before public hearings were held.

"I don't think these people ever understood the process," Dolan said, referring to Save Our Communities members. "It's not a matter that someone wasn't listened to; they just weren't agreed with."

True or not, nearly half of Tuesday's voters apparently agreed with Forbush.

"In a way, it was a referendum on [Dolan] as mayor," said Matthew Burbank, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah.

And there is something more than a simple win for Dolan, Burbank argues.

"This has to be a message," Burbank says. "There's a big chunk of Sandy that isn't happy with how this [the gravel-pit debate] proceeded."

Robyn Bagley, a spokeswoman for Save Our Communities, has a similar interpretation.

"I absolutely think he better sit up and take note. He was saying we were just a small minority," Bagley said.

The results were surprising to many Tuesday night because Dolan has rolled to easy victories in all but his first race.

He also is considered one of Utah's most well-connected mayors.

Convincing RSL to build its soccer stadium in Sandy was another development that was thought to increase Dolan's lead over Forbush (the incumbent had won last month's primary by 14 percentage points).

Burbank says how the city goes forward with the soccer stadium could be a key for Dolan's fourth term.

"Much of the soccer thing was about the soccer development," he said. "The question is, how well does that play with citizens?"

When RSL announced it was buying a site near 9400 South and State Street, team officials talked about much more than a stadium.

They envision hotels, restaurants, practice fields, housing and shopping centers developing around the facility.

Critics already have jumped on that decision, arguing that Dolan, state lawmakers and soccer executives worked out the deal behind closed doors.

Dolan, however, counters that the only decision that has been made is a site location.

"It won't be [handled any differently] than any other development in the city," Dolan said.

With the election behind him, Dolan said he intends to be focused on "getting on with the business of the city."

jsantini@sltrib.com