Mix of upsets, debuts and familiar faces in municipal races

As the dust settled from Wednesday's provincewide municipal elections, a number of rural communities found themselves with new mayors and councils — in some cases, the result of hotly contested races.

In one of the largest upsets in the province, longtime Gimli reeve Kevin Chudd was unseated by first-time rival Tammy Axelsson by more than 1,400 votes.

Axelsson, executive director of the New Iceland Heritage Museum, secured 2,712 votes of the 4,334 votes cast Wednesday. Chudd came in second with 1,268 votes. Almost 60 per cent of eligible voters cast their votes in the Gimli election.

Chudd had been reeve of the Rural Municipality of Gimli, located north of Winnipeg, since 1995. He had been a councillor for six years prior to being elected reeve.

Axelsson told CBC News Thursday she couldn't say what her landslide victory says about Chudd and his campaign, but voters did send a clear message with their ballots.

"I think that says that the people of Gimli are really looking for a change, looking for something new, wanting to move forward, move in some different directions," Axelsson said.

"Hopefully I'm going to bring strong leadership and communication … and strategic planning, working together with a really great team."

Axelsson's team is also brand new: the four councillors elected Wednesday beat out 10 other contenders, including five incumbents, for the council seats. With the exception of former Gimli mayor Bill Barlow, the councillors — Brian McKenzie, Glen Brooks and Ross Bailey — are new to municipal politics.

"We've all just recently been out there, door to door, talking to a lot of people, and I think we should really have a good handle on what people's greatest concerns are out there," Axelsson said.

"I think we have to approach it with care and consideration and we just sit down and start one step at a time."

New mayors

Residents in four major communities in northern Manitoba woke up Thursday to brand-new mayors, as the longtime incumbents in Flin Flon, The Pas, Thompson and Leaf Rapids retired from municipal politics.

The new northern mayors are:

• Flin Flon - Tom Therien.
• The Pas - Herb Jaques.
• Thomspon - Tim Johnston.
• Leaf Rapids - Ed Charrier.

In the city of Portage la Prairie, former deputy mayor Ken Brennan won the mayor's job Wednesday. Incumbent Ian Mackenzie had stepped down to run for a council seat, but lost.

Brennan said Thursday that as mayor, he will be dealing with city's current issue: a detour sending extra traffic through the city while the province replaces an overpass on the Trans-Canada Highway.

"There's an extreme amount of traffic right now going right through our city, but the province is co-operating excellently with us," Brennan said.

"They're keeping us well-informed on what they're doing. They're doing everything they can to make it easier for us. We'll continue to communicate with them, and we'll manage our way through it, we'll work our way through it. It's a bad situation, but it's nobody's fault."

Meanwhile, the southern Manitoba cities of Selkirk and Brandon re-elected their mayors on Wednesday.

In Brandon, Dave Burgess defeated five other candidates to win 8,127 votes, or 63 per cent of the vote.

"I'd like to see our city move forward. I want it to be definitely run in a manner that's very fiscally sound," Burgess said Wednesday.

"I also want to see us move forward where we can continue to grow and improve our city as we're growing."

Some of the projects Burgess said he wanted to start working on include initiatives for Brandon's downtown, as well as a bylaw that would restrict unnecessary truck traffic in the city.

In Selkirk, David Bell was re-elected as mayor. In the Rural Municipality of East St. Paul, former councillor Lawrence Morris was elected as reeve.

In the southern border town of Emerson, four candidates who had to decide between public office and their day jobs at Canada Border Services were not elected on Wednesday.

The candidates — Terry Kreitz, Larry Propp, Jeff Rodewald and Tim Lazaruk — faced new federal regulations that stipulated that they would have to take unpaid leaves of absence from their day jobs at Canada Border Services if they were elected.

The candidates informed residents earlier this week that they would not be able to accept their roles if elected.

Former Emerson mayor Wayne Arseny won the job. He also works at Canada Border Services, but was told he could continue his job while mayor because he works in another community.