Bob Buckle claims Mayor title in South Bruce

     It ended up being a fairly close race for the Mayor’s seat in the Municipality of South Bruce.

There were three people running is the 2014 Municipal Election for Mayor – Robert Buckle, Carl (Kelly) Fotheringham, and Les Nichols.  When the voting closed at 8:00 pm on Monday, October 27th, Buckle topped the polls with 836 votes. Nichols was next with 717 and Fotheringham had 671.

        The two candidates elected for Councillor at Large were Ron (Huck) Schnurr who has 1240 votes, and Mike Niesen who received 1064 votes. Ralph Kreutzwiser had 1019, and Joe Hoffarth 713.

        The Mildmay-Carrick Ward had four candidates as well.  The two elected were Wayne Huber, with 772 votes and Mark Goetz with 648. David Wood received 500 votes, and Diane Gervais 436.

        As reported in previous issues, the Teeswater-Culross Ward saw two candidates being acclaimed – namely Margie Bates and Mike McDonagh.

        Municipality of South Bruce Clerk Leanne Martin reported that  there was an approximate voter turnout of 48.5%.  A total of 2256 ballots were cast, with no blank ballots. Voters could vote via internet or telephone.  One could also go to one of two Help/Revision Centres to get assistance with the voting process.

       Ward system question

        Along with casting votes for Mayor and Council position, South Bruce electors could vote on the future of the ward system in the Municipality.

       The question read “Are you in favour of the Municipality of South Bruce passing a by-law so that all councillors, including the Mayor, are elected by general vote instead of the current system of voting?” There needed to be a  voter turnout of 50% for the question’s results to take effect, which did not occur.  It is interesting to note, though, that 1346 people voted “no” to the question, 821 voted “yes”.

    The inaugural meeting for the newly elected Council is scheduled for Tuesday, December 2nd, 2014.