The public has spoken and once again there won’t be much change at city hall.
With Shane Judge leading the charge, the anti-event centre vote failed to materialize in any great numbers.
Judge’s message to stop the $114-million project, which dominated this year’s municipal election, was heard by about a quarter of the electorate, but led him to no better than a third-place finish, some 13 percentage points and 4,932 votes behind the incumbent Keith Hobbs.
Hobbs made no bones about his support for the project, though like most candidates who backed it, said it won’t happen if the provincial and federal governments don’t come to the table with the lion’s share of the cost.
A vocal – and clearly in the minority – contingent railed for months against the event centre, its impact on the city’s bottom line, and more importantly, the added taxes they said residents will be forced to pay.
Once the results came in, with the exception of Westfort, those who stood firmly against the project were mere afterthoughts.
Judge finished third. In the at-large race, Ed Hailio, Wolfgang Schoor, Ian Convey and Kim Coreau captured four of the five lowest vote totals.
All spoke out against the project.
All five winners, four of them incumbents, offered support.
In Current River, Red River and McKellar wards, the incumbents all passed the 50 per cent mark. All were vocal supporters. Trevor Giertuga, another proponent, won handily.
In many cases the second-place finisher also supported the event centre, though many with caveats.
The win doesn’t give carte blanche to the next council to build the facility. But it gives them a clear mandate to continue down that road.
Hopefully the message received by Joe Virdiramo in Westfort and Mark Bentz, who lost his Northwood seat, is that there is dissent out there and plenty of it, and care must be taken to ensure other issues are taken care of too.
Time will tell.
