Sutton wipes the slate clean

Sutton results

The municipality of Sutton spoke loud and clear on Sunday, saying goodbye to the Alliance Sutton team led by incumbent Louis Dandenault, and voting in an entirely new council of independent candidates.

With the exception of outgoing councillor Kenneth Hill, the winning margin was well over 10 per cent between the candidates in all positions.

“It was quite an achievement in the sense that we were all independent candidates,” said newly elected Mayor Michel Lafrance.

“We had different perceptions on some issues,” Lafrance said, adding that the common thread of intending to consult citizens in all major decisions sort of bonded the group together.

“It’s almost as if all my volunteer work has been preparing me for this,” Lafrance said. “I’ll start with the DG and go forward and work on issues,” he said.

Lafrance will be sworn in by the end of the week, he said.

“I’m not going to reinvent the wheel,” he said. Lafrance plans to meet with the outgoing municipal council and see what their priorities were for the next four years and see how that fits with the new council’s vision.

“We’ll do one thing at a time,” he said, adding that creating more dialogue with the public will be a priority.

One of the first orders of business will be the budget, Lafrance said. A draft is due to be submitted to MAMOT by December.

Lafrance said the newly acquired Filtex building will be a big project for the town in the near future.

Outgoing Mayor Louis Dandenault expressed his disappointment, but wished the new council good luck.

“The people have spoken. Obviously we’re disappointed. We ran a clean campaign; we put what we did on the table and what we wanted to do. We thought we did a lot of good work. Kept taxes stable for four years, it wasn’t enough,” Dandenault said.

Regarding the ‘clean sweep’ of Alliance Sutton candidates, Dandenault commented, “We did the same thing four years ago. Not same people, but the same gang if you follow my drift.”

Dandenault said his team has an accumulated 75 years of experience in municipal politics.

“These seven people-none of them have ever done municipal politics. There’s a learning curve there,” commented Dandenault, saying some important decisions will need to be made in the next four years.

“I wish them good luck,” he said.

When asked if his political career was at an end, Dandenault said running again wasn’t out of the question, but at the moment he has no plans to throw his hat in the ring in four years. Position of mayor

Mr. Michel Lafrance

Mr. Louis Dandenault (Outgoing) Alliance Sutton

Position of councillor | District 1 Mr. Daniel Martin

Mr. Gaétan Marceau Alliance Sutton

Position of councillor | District 2

Ms. Diane Duchesne

Mr. John Hawley (Outgoing) Alliance Sutton

Position of councillor | District 4 Ms. Rosanne Cohen

Mr. André Pagé Alliance Sutton

Position of councillor | District 6

Mr. André Forest

Mr. Kenneth Hill (Outgoing) Alliance Sutton # of votes 1,284 976

Position of councillor | District 3

Ms. Patricia Lefèvre

Mr. Winston Bresee (Outgoing) Alliance Sutton

Position of councillor | District 5

Ms. Lynda Graham

Ms. Nathalie Bédard (Outgoing) Alliance Sutton

150 80

245 130

249 185

271 149

283 152

191 189