Municipal Election: Nuttall wins mayor’s seat

News — 27 October 2010

Although results are still unofficial, Craig Nuttall has been voted in as Dryden’s new mayor with 1,842 votes (55.15 per cent). Incumbent Mayor, Anne Krassilowsky fell shy of leadership with 1,500 votes, and a percentage of 44.88.

The new council will consist of Mary Trist, Ken Moss, Martin MacKinnon and incumbents Brian Collins, Mike Wood and Mel Fisher.

Mary Trist came in at 2,491 votes (13.94 per cent), followed by Mike Wood with 2397 votes (13.41 per cent). Behind the top two are Ken Moss with 2330 votes (13.04 per cent), Brian Collins with 2300 votes (12.87 per cent), Martin MacKinnon with 1963 votes (10.98 per cent) and Mel Fisher with 1586 votes (8.88 per cent).

Dave Wilkinson was elected as the new English Public School Board Trustee with a vote count of 1606 (61.25 per cent) over incumbent Ed Arnold who received 1016 votes for a percentage of 38.75.

Unsuccessful councillors in the election race were Joe Delany with 1263 votes, Richard Jonasson with 865 votes, Adam Riley with 674 and Krag Schmidt with 668. Official results will be posted within a day or two of the election.

Numbers were up this election, with a turnout of 3392 voters out of an eligible 5547. That is equal to a 61.15 per cent total ballots cast. The 2006 election saw only a 41 per cent turnout, but did not have a mayor race. Prior to that, in 2003, with a mayor’s race, the turnout was 54 per cent.

City Clerk and Returning Officer Colleen Brosseau, says that she is very pleased and proud of the voter turnout.

“I’m proud of our community, my staff in running the election and it feels like we’ve done things right and the community is engaged,” says Brosseau.

Brosseau says this is one of the highest voter turnouts in history, and can be contributed to the vote by mail system as well as the mayor’s race.

There is not a lot of savings with the vote by mail system, although Brosseau says it has worked well for the city in giving options to be flexible with electors.

“If we received return voter kits that weren’t signed, we had an opportunity to contact those electors and ask them to come in and sign their declaration form so we could process their ballot,” remarks Brosseau.

Having the count completed by two tabulators, this proved to be a very effective and time saving system. With the use of the tabulators, the unofficial results were able to be processed for the city shortly after 9 p.m.

Council meetings will continue in November with the current mayor and councillors. The mayor-elect and councillors-elect will be officially sworn in at an inaugural meeting on December 6 at the Learning Centre.

Oxdrift Unincorporated Area

In the running for the Kenora District Services Board, Oxdrift and area has voted in Sarah Campbell as their new representative with 59.5 per cent of votes over Ray LeRay.

- Ally Dunham

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