Congratulations to all involved in the recent municipal election, winners and losers — it is the competition of ideas, and the participation of citizens with these opposing perspectives that builds the strongest municipal councils. Each of you deserve recognition for stepping forward and accepting the challenge that public life represents, and I thank you for your commitment to our great city.
I write today not just to congratulate, but to offer my commentary on what is apparent in even the most amateur review of the mayoral race results — that our incumbent mayor has remarkably lost her way to the top.
How so? Well, how about these gems:
Cathy Heron's percentage of the popular vote was down across all 12 polling stations, from her 50-per-cent average in 2017, to an underwhelming 35 per cent in 2021.
While the total number of in-person voters was down compared to 2017, advance voting was up by 35 per cent. And of the 5,164 advance votes cast, nearly 65 per cent voted against Heron.
This percentage of votes against Heron is consistent through all 12 polling stations — six out of every 10 voters agree she is not the mayor best suited to leading our great city for the next four years.
At the end of the day, 599 people, just three per cent of the total mayoral votes cast, paradoxically helped Heron lose her way to the top. The unofficial tally is 6,927 votes for Heron and 10,647 votes for anyone but Heron.
At least 60 per cent of the voting public do not agree with Heron's leadership or the direction she has taken this city over the last four years.
Like myself, they do not agree with the solar farm; the library that's not really a library; the traffic congestion; the mishandling of downtown revitalization; residential development; infrastructure and land-use planning; the unsupervised, unaudited handout of cash that is the FCSS program; the innumerable in-camera meetings with Kevin Scoble and David Leflar; the workshops; the collaboration agreements with competing municipalities — so full of sound and fury, yet signifying nothing.
Most evidently, they don't agree with how Heron, or our fumbling council members, have repeatedly and unabashedly ignored and disrespected the citizens of our great city.
Heron didn't win re-election, she lost her way back into that chair. I hope she and the council keep that in the back of their minds as they embark on this next chapter in public office.
JD Lavender, St. Albert
