Tay Valley election brings new faces

Jeff Green | Oct 24, 2018

The new Reeve of Tay Valley will be former Deputy Reeve Brian Campbell. He received 1581 votes. Former Deputy Reeve Susan Freeman was second with 1234 votes and incumbent Reeve Keteh Kerr finished a distant third with 597 votes.

In the race for Deputy Reeve, newcomer Barrie Crampton was elected with 2021 votes, and incumbent Councillor Judy Farrell received 1344.

In Sherbrooke ward, Roxanne Darling was re-elected with 483 votes, as was newcomer Rob Rainer with 455. Mark Burnham, another incumbent, is out with 327 votes.

In Bathurst ward, Fred Dobbie and Gene Richardson were elected with 828 votes and 769 votes respectively. Wayne Jordan had 735 votes.

The Burgess ward councillors are both new, Beverley Phillips with 616 votes and Mick Wicklum with 609. Incumbent Greg Hallam narrowly missed out with 585 votes and Doug Barr finished 4th with 365.

The election campaign was marked by a pitched battle between the majority of the sitting council and soon to be former Councillor Judy Farrell, who had been stripped of many of her council privileges after refusing to follow the recommendations of an investigator who found she had harassed members of township staff, a finding that she disputed. Two of the key figures in that dispute, Farrell and Reeve Kerr, both went down to defeat but Brian Campbell, an ally of Farrell’s on Council, was elected to be the new Reeve.

A planning dispute between the township and Robyn Mulcahy, the operator of the Blueberry Creek Nature Centre, also may have influenced the election. That dispute also involved Mulcahy’s husband, MP Scott Reid, who appeared before Council in September on her behalf, and also published a response to the release of a second investigators into Farrell’s actions, this one relating to her relationship with her fellow members of council.

Mulcahy put out a post card last week naming 8 candidates for various positions who she said were supportive of the school in its increasingly expensive legal challenge with the township. Of those, 5 were elected. However at least one of the 8 named said they had never indicated that they support the school’s position. That candidate, Wayne Jordan, was not elected.

Another, Roxanne Darling from the Maberly area, told the News a couple of weeks ago that she does not see herself on any side in the divided world of the soon to be former council/

One thing is certain, however. The new council will have a new look. 5 of the 8 current members on Council were either defeated or did not run for re-election. Only 3 members of the current council will be in in place after the changeover next month.