Atwood sees lots drawn

It was the luck of the draw for Larry Budreau after he tied Archie Wiersema for the Atwood Ward councillor’s chair during municipal election in Dawson.
The pair had 63 votes apiece after Monday’s vote.
Returning officer Pat Giles explained a recount was held yesterday afternoon but both men still came out tied. So the two names were put in a hat, and Budreau was named in-coming councillor.
“It doesn’t happen too often,” Budreau admitted. “I really didn’t know [if I’d win] though I knew it was going to be a close race.
“I wasn’t too surprised when it was a tie,” he added.
Bringing Dawson to the year 2000 isn’t going to be an easy task, Budreau said. First and foremost on the list of tasks to deal with will be downloading.
“As it is right now, we’re looking at a 500 per cent tax increase,” Budreau said. “I think that’s why you found such a lack of interest for these positions–they don’t want to be saddled with this.”
Budreau said there may be a special emergency fund for northern communities to prevent such drastic increases in property taxes, but noted, “”We can’t judge any of this until we see at the end of the year what the government does in the form of funding.”
“If we don’t get some help from the government on this, we’ll have to do some drastic cuts,” Budreau said.
Meanwhile, incumbent Lloyd Hodges has become the first elected reeve of Dawson Township.
Hodges beat out Eltjo Wiersema, a councillor on the current council, for the position 104 votes to 84.
Acclaimed to councillor positions were John Amundsen (Blue), Linda Armstrong (Worthington), and Alfonse Langlais (Dilke.)