Collingwood chooses Cooper for second term

By Paul Brian Collingwood Enterprise-Bulletin

Collingwood has chosen Cooper.

For the second time.

After a day of high voter turnout in the 2014 Ontario Municipal Election, the ballots were counted and result declared by the Town of Collingwood: incumbent Mayor Sandra Cooper was re-elected for a second four-year term.

“Firstly, thank you so much to the people of Collingwood for their vote of confidence in electing me to another term as mayor,” Cooper said while celebrating victory with supporters and volunteers at the Living Waters Resort and Residences in Collingwood.

Cooper’s second term as mayor is in addition to two terms (six years) served on town council, and two terms served as deputy-mayor (seven years). Cooper has also been a Simcoe County councillor for 11 years and sat on a variety of committees.

In unofficial results released by the Town of Collingwood on Monday night, Cooper was elected with 4,636 votes. Mayoral candidate Chris Carrier placed second with 2,273, while mayoral candidate Joe Gardhouse came a close third at 2,131 votes.

Cooper won with 51.3% of the vote, Carrier received 25.1%, while Gardhouse received 23.6%. In the race for deputy-mayor, Brian Saunderson got 63.7% of the vote, while Rick Lloyd captured only 36.3%.

However, there will be a new individual second-in-command, as Lloyd was soundly defeated by Saunderson in the run for deputy-mayor.

“It’s been a pleasure working with Rick. He’s a true professional and I wish him all the best in the future,” Cooper said. “He’s always had Collingwood at heart.”

Cooper noted she does not know Saunderson, but was impressed with the work being done by his campaign team and is looks forward to working with him.

“It’s inspiring, it’s humbling. I certainly owe a lot to my campaign team,” Saunderson said.

“The numbers I don’t think tell the whole story. I think it was a much closer and harder campaign than that. I owe a lot to my team that really did a lot of hard work, got out the vote, and the numbers reflect that.”

Saunderson also said his number one priority is to tighten up procedure and process in council and work on possibly developing a lobbyist registry and improving fairness so sole-sourcing is not an easy option especially for large projects.

There will also be a lot of new faces in Collingwood town council.

Mike Edwards and Kevin Lloyd, both re-elected, will be joined by newcomers Tim Fryer, Cam Ecclestone, Bob Madigan, Deb Doherty and Kathy Jeffery.

In terms of working with a predominantly new council, as a Simcoe County councillor, Cooper said she is used to seeing a lot of new faces and working with different perspectives and looks forward to putting jobs and growth first in her new term with the new team.

Total voter turnout for Collingwood was 51.7%, a slight increase from the 48% voter turnout in the 2010 municipal elections.