Voters break up mayor, deputy mayor teams

By Jay Gutteridge Simcoe.com Oct 26, 2010
Although the candidates for Bradford West Gwillimbury mayor and deputy mayor presented themselves as teams in this election, voters chose one member of each team to represent them for the next four years.
“No matter who sits in the seats, we’ve got to work together and we will,” Mayor Doug White said.
Mr. White defeated challenger Jim Corneau to retain his seat as the head of council.
“I’m thrilled,” Mr. White said of the result. “There’s a lot of work to do and I’m really up to doing it.”
Mr. White said everyone understands the importance of bringing more businesses to the town to balance the tax base and expanding recreation opportunities, so there’s common ground for council to work from.
However, the election wasn’t a total victory for Mr. White.
He allied himself closely with Deputy Mayor Dennis Roughley during the campaign, but Mr. Roughley lost a close race against Rob Keffer.
“I’m really honoured by the support the people of Bradford West Gwillimbury have shown me,” Mr. Keffer said.
“I guess I’m a little humbled, as well, to realize it’s quite a responsibility,” he continued, noting he will take on the task to the best of his ability.
The new council includes a good balance of ideas, backgrounds and experience, he said.
“I think the council will probably have more discussion; more differing ideas will be floated around the council table to be discussed.”
Mr. Keffer said he’s also looking forward to serving on county council, which will undergo a number of changes due to several new mayors and deputy mayors being elected around Simcoe County.
“When 25 per cent of our tax dollars go to the county, it’s important to have people looking at good value for the taxpayers on county council.”
Some of the electronic voting tabulators in Bradford West Gwillimbury didn’t work properly on election day, meaning the last results to be counted, those of Ward 3, weren’t known until after midnight.
Both Mr. Corneau and Mr. Roughley expressed disappointment with the system.
“The time it took to get the results was an unmitigated disaster,” Mr. Corneau said.
He said the discrepancy in the number of votes cast for mayor versus deputy mayor indicates the system is suspect.
The official results indicate 176 more people voted for mayor than for deputy mayor.
However, town clerk Patricia Nash said the integrity of the vote was not compromised by the electronic tabulators.
The problem was simply with feeding the ballots into the system, she said. When a ballot wouldn’t feed properly, it was placed into a backup compartment and fed into the machine after the polls closed.
All of the ballots were counted and the tabulating function of the machines worked fine, she said.
The reason Ward 3 took longer to count is the tabulating machine at the poll would not feed the ballots properly even after the polls closed, so the ballots were taken to the municipal office at 100 Dissette St. and fed into a tabulating machine there.
Ms Nash said she would use electronic tabulators again and would recommend them to other municipalities, but noted the decision on what forms of ballots to use rests with council.
This was the third time electronic tabulators were used for a Bradford West Gwillimbury election. A different company was used to supply the machines this time, Ms Nash said.
As for the results, Mr. Corneau said they weren’t what he expected.
“I thought it would be a little closer,” he said, noting the change at deputy mayor indicates his campaign accomplished something.
“It’s what the voters elected,” he said of the overall results. “Council has to somehow move together and coalesce to get anything accomplished.”
Mr. Roughley said Mr. Keffer did a better job than him of getting people to the polls.
“I’ve enjoyed my 22 years on council,” Mr. Roughley said, noting he plans to take some time off to think about what he will do next.
“I have enormous respect for Dennis,” Mr. White said. “I always have and I always will.
“Nothing can take away from the fact he served the town well for 25 years.”
Like the current council, the new council will get together at the beginning of its term for a strategy session to determine its priorities, Mr. White said.