Ferguson, Savage win in Clearview
By Michael Gennings Oct 25, 2010
Re-count being called for in Ward 2, Brown wins by one vote
Ferguson, Savage win in Clearview. Ken Ferguson (centre) watches election results come in Monday night at the Stayner Community Centre. Ferguson was returned as mayor of Clearview Township. Alicia Savage was returned as deputy mayor. Staff photo: Michael Gennings STAYNER – The 2010 Clearview Township municipal election came to an end Monday night, with Mayor Ken Ferguson and Deputy Mayor Alicia Savage winning second terms in office.
Ferguson, Savage and many other candidates for council gathered at the Stayner Community Centre to await the results.
The mayor, who beat challenger Chris Vanderkruys, said his success in garnering a second mandate can be credited to the fact that he’s brought stable government to Clearview Township over the last four years.
“Number two, I reached out to the business community, the farmers, I worked hard this campaign, harder than I ever have before in an election and I think the message is clear. The people have spoken and I listened.”
Ferguson said he did a lot of door-knocking and other types of campaigning, such as mailing personal letters and brochures, to get his message out.
He said the new council has a lot of work ahead.
“The biggest thing right off the bat, which will determine our next four years, is the growth plan for the county, our growth plan, we need to get them approved by the province. We need to see where we will be with our growth. We have to also move forward with the new emergency hub in Stayner – there are many things we have to do.
“As I said in my campaign speech, we’ll sit down as a council and I want council to figure out what we’ll get done in the next four years, a financial plan to do it and that way council, staff and most of all the taxpayers know what I want to get done in four years.”
He said that at the end of the next term he wants Clearview to still be true to its roots as a rural community but also in a better position.
“I still want Clearview to be Clearview. It’s unique. I’m so proud of where we live. I can’t imagine living anywhere else. We have so many amenities. But most of all we have a bunch of great people.”
Ferguson joined Clearview council in 1994 as a councillor for Ward 1. He said he never had an idea that some day he’d be mayor.
“Not a clue. It was never a mandate of mine. It’s an honour and a privilege. I think I’ve proved myself. And at the end of the day, I want to come up with solutions,” he said.
Ferguson said that he really wants the next council to work.
“We have to get something done,” he said. “We will be working harder than ever. We will be putting more responsibility on every councillor to get the job done.”
Savage beat challenger Eric Jelinski, a relative newcomer to Clearview and a member of the township’s economic development committee.
Savage said she campaigned hard. She went door-to-door, attended all candidates meetings, telephoned people, advertised and put up election signs.
“And I stuck to the issues. I know what the priorities are, I articulated those priorities and clearly people agree that we need to focus on servicing, job creation and we need to stick to the facts and that’s what I did,” she said.
The deputy mayor said she’s looking forward to the next four-year term.
“I’m very excited that we have a mandate, a mandate to go ahead with the Stayner servicing agreement. We can get that into place quickly and move ahead with our residential lands but much more importantly our industrial lands and the servicing of them,” she said. “I really hope too that we can move ahead with the library project for Stayner. It’s critical. It’s so long overdue and our people are suffering as a result of it.”
Savage said she was humbled by the support of voters.
“I don’t take it for granted,” she said. “I’m glad that they are happy with the work I’ve done – I’ll continue to work hard. I’m really excited about the fact that two experienced people [the mayor and myself] will be sitting at the County of Simcoe.”
In Ward 1, incumbent Doug Measures was given a second term. He beat challengers Al Bell and Dave McKee.
“I’m very pleased with the results. I think the ward, the people of Ward 1 have spoken and done so clearly. I think there’s still a lot of work ahead for Clearview and it will be an exciting council to work on,” Measures said. “I’m looking forward to providing good representation.”
Ward 2 incumbent Orville Brown won by one vote, beating challenger John Millar, while candidate Ivan Weatherall placed a distant third.
Brown declined to comment about the squeaker of a win as he left the Stayner Community Centre Monday evening but Millar said he does plan to ask for a re-count.
Brent Preston won the Ward 3 council seat. He beat Marc Royal – who was appointed to the seat when John Crispo died – and challengers Jace Metheral and Dave Huskinson.
“This whole campaign has been a very interesting experience,” Preston said. “I’ve learned a lot about myself. My message was really clear. It was about preserving the things that make Ward 3 in particular and Clearview Township a great place to live, which I think are our natural environment, the strength and cohesion of our communities and the financial footing that our township is on.”
Preston said he campaigned as “a strong defender of the environment, as a defender of our communities and as an opponent to excessive growth and to suburban-style development in our villages and as a proponent of sound, stable fiscal management.”
In the next four years, Preston said he wants “to see more thought go into creating things like specific development plans for our settlement areas, to really take control, for the council to take control of the planning process and say very deliberately what sort of communities we can live in and how we make that a reality.”
Preston added he’s looking forward to examining economic opportunities for Clearview.
“You know I’m a small scale farmer and I think we have all sorts of economic opportunities to grow our economy through sustainable things like tourism, agriculture, growing for the local market, recreation. There’s all sorts of sustainable activities we could bring here that would really boost our level of community and give people a reason to want to live here.”
Incumbent Thom Paterson was returned to a second term in Ward 4, beating challenger Michael Bennett.
He said his success is due to the fact he’s responsive to the concerns of constituents.
“I like doing this job, I like being accessible, I talk to people and I like working on their behalf,” he said. Paterson said he tried to get to as many homes as he could during the campaign.
“There were a lot of ‘no answers’ so I had to circle back as late as last night to try and finish off but there are a lot of hard-working people which kind of exemplifies one of the problems we have: Even when you try to go door-to-door, try to access people, people are busy, they have working lives, families, so as a council we’re going to have to work on how you get to people, find out what they really want, services, schools, recreation and respond to them.”
Paterson said he did not hear a lot about “major issues” while campaigning.
“Generally people had specific concerns. When I asked about taxes or services, almost unanimously people said they prefer better services than lower taxes. In other words, taxes are at about the right level but do something about services,” he said.
Ward 5 councillor Robert Walker was returned for a third term. He beat challengers John Broderick and David Witzke.
Deborah Bronee beat Ward 6 incumbent Roger McGillvray. Bronee said she did well because “I had a couple of really strong supporters helping me with my campaign, helping me with the design of our literature, helping with timing as to when stuff went out and I was really honest and I went out and talked to people.”
Bronee said she too did a lot of door knocking and worked the phones to secure votes.
When asked what she heard from voters while on the campaign trail Bronee chuckled.
“You know people in New Lowell are looking for high-speed Internet,” she said. “So that’s something to work on. There weren’t a whole lot of issues. They wanted to know the person they were electing. They wanted to put a name to a face.”
Ward 7 councillor Shawn Davidson was acclaimed. Davidson said he was happy with how the results played out Monday night.
“I’m very pleased that the residents of Clearview acknowledged the hard work this council has done over the last four years and it’s a very strong mandate to stay on a similar path,” Davidson said. “There are a couple of new councillors that will bring some new energy, which I think will be good for council.”
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