At the end of Round 1 Spring,
the mayor is chosen based on who has the most friends, and the general popularity score.
Sims have had 5 days to discover who they are, and what they like to do without worrying about falling in love. (Unless you're Fiona and Chris - in which case you got into that way earlier than everybody else!)
This 5 day period was the only time when things can be bought from the catalog - so important stuff like benches, and hobby stuff was bought (assuming they had money for it).
Fiddling with the lots to make them work, and make sure isn't any blocked objects or pathing problems. All done.
Spring weather was very wet, and thunder and lightning - very, very frightening! So mods were added as required. Still haven't managed to stop the more foolish of the sims from playing in the puddles in a lightning storm.
Holly Gear opened the first store - a home business florist shop. that also required tweaking to make it work.
So that's all the hood news. Details under the cut: