The 2014 Municipal Elections, A Post-Mortem

by
Mark Brown
Citizen Columnist

The voters have spoken – at least those who bothered to show up.

Residents in Windsor had an opportunity Monday to have a say in the turnover taking place at city hall. A new mayor was being chosen. Four seats on Windsor City Council were open and the rest were up for grabs. Communities across Essex County were choosing mayors, deputy mayors, councillors and school board trustees. Residents had the power to decide who was going to run things where they lived for the next four years.

Some of the communities won’t see much of a change, others will see a dramatic transformation. Let’s begin with Windsor…

Mayor Eddie Francis, in office since 2003, announced earlier this year that he would not seek reelection. Since then, 10 candidates filed to take his place. On Monday night, voters overwhelmingly chose Ward 1 Councillor Drew Dilkens to replace him. Dilkens received more than twice the votes gained by his closest competitor John Millson, who was mayor from 1988 to 1991. This victory is a stamp of approval from Windsorites who would like to see the pro-business policies that had begun under Francis continue. While I expected Dilkens to emerge victorious, I thought the race between him, Millson and downtown business cheerleader Larry Horwitz to be much closer. Nevertheless, the mandate seems to be clear for Dilkens.

Moving on to city council, there will be five new faces once the next term of office begins in December, four of them through open seats, the fifth ousting an incumbent believed by many to be immature and irresponsible. The most dramatic victory of them all belongs to Ward 3’s Rino Bortolin. Polls leading up to the vote didn’t give Bortolin much of a chance and his victory took many by surprise. Another interesting development was in Ward 10 with Paul Borrelli ousting disgraced incumbent Al Maghnieh, still smarting from the library credit card scandal. Maghnieh finished a paltry fifth in the unofficial Ward 10 vote count.

Elsewhere, the new councillors are Fred Francis, the previous mayor’s brother in Ward 1, John Elliott in Ward 2 and Chris Holt in Ward 4. Incumbents Ed Sleiman, Jo-Anne Gignac, Bill Marra, Hilary Payne and Irek Kusmierczyk were reelected. I think that the results show that Windsorites would like to see some new ideas from new people, while once again continuing the policies under Eddie Francis.

In the county, results were delayed due to computer glitches in several communities. Once the mess was cleaned up, Tecumseh retained Gary McNamara as mayor. Councillor Joe Bachetti is the new deputy mayor, and there will be three new people on town council: Andrew Dowie, Mike Rohrer and Brian Houston. Incumbents Marcel Blais and Guy Dorion are out, indicating that in Tecumseh, residents want to see some new ideas.

Other communities that reported tabulation problems were Lakeshore and Kingsville, but there were no real surprises in either municipality. Same thing for Essex and Leamington. But in Amherstburg, it was a sure case of “throw ’em all out.” The town’s debt problems dampened the trust of many residents and they cleaned house at town hall. Councillor Diane Pouget is the only incumbent returning to council in Amherstburg, the others, with the exception of new deputy mayor Bart DiPasquale were unsuccessful in their efforts to be elected to other open offices. That just goes to show that when things aren’t so rosy where you live, voters will certainly react and it is not always pleasant for the incumbents.

As for the voters themselves, officials were surprised that the turnout wasn’t as high as they anticipated – Windsor especially. Only 37.5 per cent of the registered electorate bothered to cast a ballot. To the rest…shame on you.

To those who did vote, be happy you had a say in the future of your community.