Helps back for second session as city’s mayor
Incumbent Lisa Helps, who faced nine challengers in Victoria’s mayoral campaign, pulled off another win in the capital city.
“I feel like we have a strong mandate to carry on,” she told reporters after the ballots were counted.
Long lineups at the ballot boxes in Victoria delayed the counting of the votes.
Anyone who was in line at a voting place when the polls closed at 8 p.m. were allowed to vote.
Helps, 42, received 42.6 per cent of the vote compared to Stephen Hammond’s 29.3 per cent and Michael Geoghagen’s 14.6 per cent.
Sociology professor Bruce McGuigan, 59, ran fourth with eight per cent of the vote.
Helps, who served one term on council before becoming mayor, became a lightning rod for controversy over the last four years, seemingly carrying the weight of every council decision from bike lanes to new development.
Opponents slammed her during the campaign for what they saw as a topdown approach to consultation, saying Helps had developed a pattern of pushing ahead with decisions only to later back down and/or apologize when it became clear the neighbourhood wasn’t on board.
Helps, who maintained she was the only candidate with a detailed plan of action for the future, countered that she did listen and that focusing on two or three consultation processes that didn’t succeed ignored the hundreds that did.