Vandewal returned in SF

Jeff Green | Oct 24, 2018

At the all candidates meeting that was held in Sydenham, Fran Willes got the biggest laugh of the evening when, during her opening remarks, she said “last time I lost by only 4 votes, so I’m playing on your sympathy here by asking you to vote for me this time.”

She could not have known at the time, no one could, that when the votes were counted this time around, in a computer server somewhere in Nova Scotia, she would be exactly 4 votes shy of winning once again. There is no word on who those 4 people are and if it was the same 4 this time around.

The last time she lost out 688-684 to Mark Schjerning, who went down to defeat in the mayoralty race this time around, and this time she lost 1079-1075 to Randy Ruttan. In 2018, as well as in 2014, Ross Sutherland led all vote getters in Loughborough District. This time he received 1647 votes. Farrah Soaft rounded out the field with 275 votes.

In the race for Mayor, Ron Vandewal was comfortably re-elected to a second term with 3,237 votes (48%), almost as many votes as the total of both his opponents when added together. Mark Schjerning received 2,164 votes (32%) and Phil Archambault 1,274 (19%).

It was a wide-open race in Portland District. The only incumbent, Brad Barbeau, had been appointed two years into the term, after the death of Bill Robinson. In this election, two new members were elected. Ray Leonard received the most votes by a fair margin (1,156) and Doug Morey was also elected (579). Tom Bruce finished in 3rd place (528), followed by Brad Barbeau (495) and Bruno Albano (222)

When contacted the day after the election, Vandewal said he was happy to have been re-elected.

“I felt all along that with two candidates opposing me, they would end up splitting the votes against me, and to a certain extent I think they did that,” he said.

He also said that he expects the township to continue in a similar path that it has been on, and that he would like to sit down with Council early in the new term to talk about the direction the township wants to go in, particularly as far as public works is concerned.

“I would like us to set a direction. What projects do we want to take on, and do we want to shift the emphasis towards roadside maintenance, which we sometimes neglect in favour of road construction,” he said.

There was some controversy in the run-up to the vote, about an ad that Ron Vandewal purchased on the Verona electronic sign that is operated by the Verona Community Association. Phil Archambault said he thought it might be improper because the operation of the VCA sign is subsidised by the township, which covers the sign’s electricity costs on behalf of the association.

Wayne Orr, Chief Administrative Officer for South Frontenac, responded in writing to a question about the propriety of Vandewal paying to use the sign.

He said, in part, “All candidates have the opportunity to use campaign advertising within the confines of their authorised spending limit.  The choice of advertising (i.e. newspaper ads, social media, hand delivered flyers, mail outs, lawn signs, election billboards, etc.) rests entirely with the candidate.   The township does place restrictions on the location of signs. In summary the VCA Electronic Sign is not a township asset under our control and as such the township is not in a position to intervene in this situation.”

Wayne Conway, of the VCA, said that Vandewal approached him about renting rotating space on the sign and was referred to the VCA website, which outlines the terms and the cost.

“He rented it for two weeks. We could have and would have accommodated other candidates but none came forward. Use of the sign is free for not-for-profit groups and we have spots available for businesses, at a fee, as well, to help us cover our costs.”

Archambault told the News that if the vote was close, he would consider lodging a complaint or taking legal action, but not if, as ended up happening, Vandewal won handily.

(Editors note - We reached out to Fran Willes before preparing this article, but she did not call back in time for this week’s paper. Back in 2014 and again in 2018, she raised concerns during the voting period about problems some residents have had accessing the online/telephone voting system that the township uses.)