Staff
Garnering more votes than the other two candidates combined, newcomer Dave Kircher nabbed one of the two public school board trustee seats for Fort Frances.
The unofficial preliminary results from yesterday’s municipal election saw Kircher elected to the Rainy River District School Board with 1,570 votes.
Longtime trustee Dan Belluz was re-elected with 734.
With 579 votes, Terry Higgins—who had joined the board in 2008 following the resignation of Donna Dittaro—lost his seat.
There also will be other new faces on the public board for the upcoming term.
Ralph Hill (285 votes) ousted incumbent Glenda Belluz (225) for the seat in the Alberton/La Vallee/unorganized area.
Dianne McCormack garnered 387 votes to defeat fellow newcomer Michele Abraham (213) for the seat that serves Morley, Morson, Lake of the Woods, McCrosson-Tovell, Rainy River, Dawson, and the outlying unorganized areas.
Incumbent Ron McAlister did not seek re-election.
Incumbent Margaret Heyens was acclaimed for another term serving Emo, Kingsford, Fleming, Senn, McLarty, Nestor Falls,
Chapple, and some of the unorganized areas north of there.
Mike Lewis was acclaimed for the seat for Atikokan after incumbent Judy Eluik chose not to seek re-election.
Meanwhile, with one less seat for Fort Frances on the Northwest Catholic District School Board, it was incumbent Paul Cousineau who was ousted after the votes were tallied.
Incumbents Anne Marie Fitzgerald and Harold Huntley retained their seats as trustees for the Fort Frances area with 364 and 299 votes, respectively, in the unofficial preliminary results
Cousineau finished third with 246.
Fort Frances saw its number of trustees cut from three to two for the upcoming term after the board voted earlier this year to adjust the trustee distribution due to a shift in the electoral quotient.
While Fort Frances lost a seat, Sioux Lookout gained one.
Cousineau voted in favour of this redistribution while Fitzgerald, Huntley, and Mark Chojko-Bolec (Stratton) voted to keep the trustee distribution as is.
Chojko-Bolec also was re-elected yesterday in a close race, garnering 60 votes to defeat challenger Roseanne Zimmerman by just four (56).
Teresa Larson was acclaimed as the trustee for the Atikokan area.
Incumbent Robert Van Oort and newcomer Kathy Bryck were acclaimed for the two seats in Dryden.
John Borst did not seek re-election.
And incumbent Cathy Bowen was acclaimed for one of the two seats in Sioux Lookout, with newcomer James Kulchyski taking the second one by acclamation.
