Orillia: Developer faces two councillors in mayoralty contest

By SARA ROSS, THE Orillia PACKET and TIMES September 11 2010
The city’s fall election came into clear focus Friday as the deadline for candidates to register passed.
With no other contenders entering the ring Friday, two current councillors and Orillia’s largest developer will be battling it out for the city’s top job. Council incumbents Tim Lauer and Ralph Cipolla have announced their mayoral candidacies along with developer Angelo Orsi.
Incumbent Mayor Ron Stevens, who has held the position for three terms, is running for councillor in Severn Township.
Though there is still time for Orillians to register, to date there are 21,897 voters in the city eligible to head to the polls Oct. 25.
In 2006, just 9,137 of a possible 24,081 eligible voters — 37.94% — cast ballots.
Of the current eight councillors, just one is not running in the upcoming election. Don Evans is leaving municipal politics to focus on his full-time job as executive director of the Sharing Place food bank.
Ward 1 incumbents Wayne Gardy and Joe Fecht are looking to secure their seats for another term and will be challenged by Leon Welch, Donald Jenkins, Paul Cain and Patrick Kehoe. Dick Sleep has withdrawn his nomination papers.
Ward 2 incumbent Maurice McMillan hopes to hold onto a seat with hopefuls Pete Bowen, Linda Murray, Philip Crawford, Andrew Martin, John Falcon and Gordon Launchbury also running.
In Ward 3, incumbents Michael Fogarty and Paul Spears will be challenged by Robert Welsh and Brian Mawdsley.
With no incumbents running in Ward 4, it attracted the most candidates. The eight people vying for a seat are Tony Madden, Andrew Hill, Colin McKim, Janifer Tissington, Jeffrey Olimer, Kelly Clune, Glenda Kruska and Pat Reid.
Now that the deadline has passed, no candidates can join or pull out of the race, city clerk Gayle Jackson noted on Friday.
The finalized list of candidates will be posted on Monday.
“What happens now is I go through each one of them to confirm that they are in fact qualified and I certify the documents,” Jackson said.
For trustee of the Simcoe County District School Board, incumbent Debra Edwards is seeking re-election. Running against her is Roy Menagh. Vying for the Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board seat are Lydia Reekie and Francis Smith.
Running for the French Language Public District School Board is Guy Belcourt and Eric Lapointe and for the French Language Separate District School Board, Cindy Labas and Adrien Lamoureux.