Duane Hicks
Roy Avis has been re-elected mayor of Fort Frances.
Avis beat Coun. Andrew Hallikas, who served on council for eight years, and former mayor Dan Onichuk in yesterday’s municipal election.
He garnered 1,459 votes to 1,118 for Hallikas and 406 for Onichuk.
Meanwhile, the four incumbents running for council all were re-elected yesterday—Paul Ryan (1,382), John Albanese (1,223), Ken Perry (1,108), and Doug Kitowski (1,039).
The only newcomers joining council among the 16 candidates vying for a seat were June Caul and Wendy Brunetta, although they led the way with 1,895 and 1,726 votes, respectively.
Rounding out the council candidates were Harold Huntley (911), Eric Fagerdahl (895), Allan T. Bedard (740), Jennifer Horton (718), Charleen Mallory (611), Joe Kneisz (607), Jennifer Greenhalgh (563), Dan Belluz (560), Ed Haglund (476), and Scott Krienke-Turvey (192).
Meanwhile, David Kircher was re-elected to the Rainy River District School Board with 1,903 votes.
He was joined by Raymond Roy, who got 1,360 votes to earn the capture the second Fort Frances seat.
Rudy Zeitlhofer garnered 574 votes while Stephen Sinclair got 449.
Anne Marie Fitzgerald was re-elected as one of the two Fort Frances trustees on the Northwest Catholic District School Board, garnering 448 votes.
Also elected was newcomer Bob Grynol (331 votes), who beat out Cathy Piotrowski (295).
As well, Don Canfield was elected to the unincorporated “Central” seat on the Rainy River District Social Services Administration Board, defeating John Steinke (441-65).
A total of 3,021 ballots were cast for mayor and council. With a total of 5,486 eligible voters in Fort Frances, voter turnout was pegged at 55 percent.
Overall, new returning officer Lisa Slomke was pleased with election.
“I believe the election went according to the procedures,” she told the Times this morning.
“I had set myself an early target of 50 percent voter turnout, which was surpassed.
“My elections staff worked incredibly hard to deliver a top-notch election with extremely credible results,” Slomke added.
Still, election results took longer than many people expected, with the unofficial numbers not fully tallied until around midnight.
While electronic tabulators were used to count up votes, the large field of candidates—three for mayor and 16 for council—may have slowed the process.
“There was nothing wrong with the tabulators but you can only feed them as fast as they will accept paper,” Slomke explained.
“The tabulator company had indicated that the machines could read up to 500 ballots each in an hour, and I had scheduled staff according to that estimate,” she noted.
“In speaking with the tabulator company this morning, they have indicated the large number of candidates affects the speed of the machine as it has to read the markings beside each name,” Slomke said.
In district races, Jack Siemens defeated incumbent Vince Sheppard as mayor of Emo while former reeve Ken McKinnon beat incumbent Ross Donaldson in La Vallee.
In Rainy River, incumbent mayor Deb Ewald was re-elected over former councillor Brent Anderson.
George Heyens defeated Tyler Nordin for reeve in Morley while Linda Armstrong upended incumbent Eltjo Wiersema for reeve in Dawson.
And in Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls, Jerry O’Leary was elected mayor over Wayne Helliar and Chan Motlong.
