Voters sweep Pelham council clean of incumbents
Junkin wins town’s mayoral race in a landslide
It’s going to be steep learning curve in Pelham, where no candidate was returned to office.
The only experience will come from a former councillor who quit his post late last year out of frustration with how the local government was being run has been elected mayor.
Marvin Junkin, a farmer from Fenwick, won a three-candidate race by defeating Ward 2 councillor Gary Accursi and newcomer Carla Baxter in a landslide with 3,975 votes.
Accursi was runnerup with 1,671 votes while Baxter had support from 1,495 residents.
Junkin zeroed in on the municipality’s finances in the months leading up to Monday’s election.
With all new faces also elected to six councillor seats in the town’s three wards, Junkin said voters in Pelham were hungry for change.
“They wanted a mayor and council that would be upfront with them,” he said at his campaign headquarters.
In Ward 1, a part of town where candidates said commercial cannabis growing operations is a major issue, incumbents Richard Rybiak and James Lane were unseated by Marianne Stewart and Mike Ciolfi.
Catherine King was not reelected to her Ward 2 seat and the two new representatives for that part of town will be Ron Kore and John Wink. Candidates in this area campaigned on improving the town’s debt and debated the permission of short-term house rentals.
Peter Papp and John Durley were unseated by Lisa Haun and Bob Hildebrandt in Ward 3, where odours from legal cannabis production facilities and other issues were at the forefront.
“This town is definitely going to be experiencing a change in attitude, a change in how we communicate with the people,” Junkin said.
Although he disagreed with spending nearly $40 million on a new arena, and contests opinions from out-going mayor Dave Augustyn that a majority of residents wanted it, Junkin said he “has no trouble with it” and looks forward to making sure it is used to its fullest potential.
How the approval process for the arena unfolded is one of the main reasons he resigned from his post last November.
“We need to take a look at our debt situation and prioritize our spending going ahead,” he said.
Augustyn lost his bid for regional council — and regional chair aspirations — when Diane Huson was elected, unseating Brian Baty in the process.