Progress results, with 85% of votes counted, showed Mrs Alley with 5130 votes ahead of contenders Charlie Sanders on 1886 votes and Mark Quinn on 1318.
Humbled, thrilled and really excited was how Mrs Alley described her reaction to the results.
"This isn’t about one person. This is really about the community choosing the direction that they want to go in and in Central Otago that is very clearly forward."
After a competitive campaign, fought while continuing to carry out the role of mayor, it was a relief to get the news, she said.
"I had a call just after lunch [yesterday] from the chief executive, Peter Kelly, with the wonderful news that I had been elected for another three years in the hot seat."
Mrs Alley was appointed mayor in October last year after former mayor Tim Cadogan resigned.
She was selected as mayor by the councillors as it was less than one year until the next election and the expense of a by-election was avoided.
There were already two big projects on the agenda for the next triennium.
Bringing the community back into the council and housing were top of her list.
"This council belongs to the community and I want the community to feel like that, so it’s going to be very much about changing the culture — the way the community sees the council and making them feel more involved."
Mrs Alley was planning a celebratory dinner with family and friends tonight.
One of the two unsuccessful candidates for the Central Otago mayoral seat was puzzled by the progress results as they came out on Saturday.
When he was campaigning, people said they were very perturbed about rates increases, water and the general direction of the council, yet the election results seemed to be the exact opposite of that, he said.
"Leading up to the election there seemed to be a reasonably big call for change ... I guess the voting is for the present just to carry on, isn’t it really?"
However, as a councillor, he would try to make things better, Mr Sanders said.
The third mayoral and council candidate, Mark Quinn, did not respond when contacted by the Otago Daily Times.
Mr Quinn was the lowest polling mayoral candidate and won just 80 votes in the Teviot ward councillor election.
Highest polling candidates in Cromwell ward were incumbent councillors Cheryl Laws and Sarah Browne.
Mr Sanders was third and former Cromwell Community Board member Bob Scott would fill the fourth seat.
The Vincent ward returned Tracy Paterson and Martin McPherson as the highest-polling candidates.
Newcomers Nathan McLean and Dave McKenzie would fill the other two seats.
In the Maniototo ward, Stu Duncan was returned with 534 votes, beating challenger Michelle Bisset on 330.
Teviot Valley Community Board member Curtis Pannett took the clear majority for the Teviot ward seat with 621 votes to contender Mark Quinn’s 80.
Missing from around the council table would be former councillors Lynley Claridge and Ian Cooney.
