John GracePast Goderich Mayor John Grace. (Photo by Bob Montgomery)
Midwestern

Huron County municipalities have some new leaders

*For the full results, click on the town/municipality

Ashfield-Colborne-Wawansosh

The reeve and deputy reeve position was already figured out before the votes came in.

Both Glen McNeil and Roger Watt were acclaimed.

"Our plans in ACW would be to continue the great work that our past reeve of 16 years, Ben Van Diepenbeek, and previous councils that have done, to position ACW as a sought after municipality," said McNeil. "We have the lowest tax rate of any municipality in Huron County. And we are absolutely blessed to have a shoreline that stretches from Amberley to Goderich. We have great municipal staff and we look forward to continue to enhance the infrastructure."

For McNeil, he said it was a nice vote of confidence when he found out he had been acclaimed. "I very much appreciate the confidence that the residents of ACW has placed in me for this position."

As for councillors, Jennifer Miltenberg was acclaimed. Joining her are Bill Vanstone in Colborne and Wayne Forster in Wawanosh, along with Gloria Fisher and Anita Snobelen who were elected as the councillors at large.

 

Town of Bluewater

Paul Klopp has been elected as Mayor in Bluewater.

He also ran in 2014 when he was edged by Tyler Hessel.

"I've felt for a while that we need to not assume taxes should go up every budget; we should tackle it from the point of view assuming no new taxes," said Klopp as he won by about 700 vote this time.

He also noted, "It was put in place about three years ago that councillors aren't to talk to staff. That to me is a very inefficient way of running things. You wouldn't run your business that way. Seemed to draw a sense that we should be going that direction, so I certainly hope that councillors will vote that they can talk to staff".

Jim Ferguson was elected deputy mayor.

Bill Whetstone (Bayfield), Shawn LaPorte (Zurich) and John Becker (Hay East) were acclaimed. Joining them are Alwyn Vanden Berg (Hay West), Scott Harris (Hensall), George Irvin (Stanley West) and Peter Walden (Stanley East).

 

Central Huron

In Central Huron, Jim Ginn was acclaimed as mayor and will be joined by some elected officials.

David Jewitt takes the deputy mayor's seat.

The councillors for East Ward are Marg Anderson, Danny Colquhoun and Alex Westerhout. In the West Ward, Allison Lobb, Adam Robinson and Michael Russo were elected.

 

Town of Goderich

With 1,940 votes John Grace is the new mayor of Goderich. He outpaced David Yates and incumbent Kevin Morrison.

Grace believes online voting was one of the reasons voter turnout in the town was higher than it's ever been. "They're engaged in the process," said Grace. "If you look at the amount of people that voted, probably the highest vote count ever. 61% to 62%, that is amazing."

And that was part of his platform. "So the community is engaged, they are ready to go and we are looking for a few changes. But we got a really good asset base to start from."

In the immediate future, Grace says his priorities are the downtown, the waterfront and residential development.

Myles Murdock was elected deputy mayor.

And the councillors will be Trevor Bazinet, James Donnelly, Matt Hoy, Stephen Tamming and Shawn Thomson.

 

Township of Howick

Doug Harding has been elected Reeve, defeating opponents Rosemary Rognvaldson and Robert Clarkson.

Harding received 70.6% of the vote.

"I am overwhelmed by the support that I was shown in this election. I ran for a by-election three years ago and three months ago and I had pretty good support that time, but I cannot believe the support I received this round," said Harding.

"I don't have a real gameplan as of yet. We have just finished passing a five year plan for Howick Township, which I wasn't entirely in favour of and I was one of the councillors that voted against it. I'm interested to see what Huron County says about the amendments we have put forward for that plan before they pass it, but we've had some land that was changed from agricultural to environmentally-sensitive," added Harding. "My mandate for the last few years has been to take taxpayers concerns very seriously and look into them, and I promise people that I will continue to do that as head of this council."

Eldon Bowman was elected deputy reeve. The councillors are Megan Gibson, Doug Hargrave and Bob Illman.

 

Huron East

Bernie MacLellan has been re-elected in a tight race.

MacLellan took 54.1% of the vote, defeating Caitlin Gillis.

"We want to keep improving the services that we have for our ratepayers, but still keep taxes in line. Huron East has a really great record, I think we have the second-lowest taxes in the county. We want to maintain that but still keep improving the service level," said MacLellan.

 

Morris-Turnberry

Jamie Heffer has been acclaimed as Mayor. Paul Gowing did not seek re-election.

Heffer will be joined by four councillors, Kevin Freiburger, Jamie McCallum, Jim Nelemans and Sharen Zinn.

 

North Huron

In a stunning victory, former councillor Bernie Bailey has been elected as North Huron's new Reeve.

"I am truly humbled," said Bailey. "I cannot believe the numbers I'm looking at. It is a big task forward but I am truly humbled for the support from my town."

He says most of the council members that were elected pretty well came along with similar ideas.

"We are going to get along with our neighbours, and we're going to make agreements that work for both parties, and we're going to make a good team," added Bailey.

The only councillor to return is Trevor Seip from the Wingham ward. Paul Heffer was also elected.

Kevin Falconer and Ric McBurney will over Blyth and Chris Palmer and Anita Hittersum will represent East Wawanosh.

 

South Huron

In a tight race, George Finch has defeated Dave Frayne, Tom Oke and incumbent Maureen Cole to become Mayor of South Huron.

"I think the people have spoken here in South Huron. They wanted a change, and they've got one. My commitment to them is to provide the best four years I can for them, no different then if they were the ones sitting in my chair at this point," said Finch. "We want to be fiscally responsible, there's a lot of different challenges facing council, not withstanding from policing, to fire protection, to the community hub that is being talked about in South Huron."

Finch also feels there are some immediate concerns.

"There's projects that need to be done right now. The Dashwood Community Centre needs to be completed right away. There's various challenges that need to be looked at and we're going to look at them all."

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