West Nipissing residents let their votes do the talking and the loudest cry was for change. The old mayor and council are gone, and new faces will take the reigns at Town Hall. Kathleen Rochon will take the mayor’s seat with 40.98 per cent of the vote. 2,698 ballots were cast for Rochon, with the second-place contender, Dave Lewington bringing home 1,978 votes. Dan Roveda, currently a sitting council member, came in third place with 1,908 votes.
See: Kathleen Rochon is West Nipissing’s first mayoral candidate
The past term has been difficult for residents, as council was often divided on most issues, and many meetings were cut short due to disagreements. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing stepped in to help council fill an empty council seat—which had been vacant for almost two years—and the municipality’s chief administrative officer decided at one point to remove municipal staff from council meetings, citing a toxic work environment as his reason.
See: West Nipissing’s CAO removes his staff from ‘toxicity’ of council
Now residents have a clean slate, as no members from last term will be present at the table. Mayor Joanne Savage decided not to seek re-election. Lise Senecal also chose not to add her name to the ballot. Same with Leo Malette, Yvon Duhaime, and Denis Senecal, which left five seats to fill.
Councillor Roveda made a run for mayor, and Roland Larabie ran again to represent Ward 6. Larabie was defeated by Anne Tessier, who received 388 votes to Larabie’s 295.
Councillor Christopher Fisher sought re-election in Ward 5 and the results were close. Kaitlynn Nicol earned 234 for her seat at the table and Fisher had 222.
Normand Roberge, who joined council this past June to fill that long-vacant Ward 7 seat, took a run again for the ward but was defeated by Fernand Pellerin who had 445 votes to Roberge’s 167.
Kris Rivard will represent Ward 1, Roch St. Louis won Ward 2, Daniel Gagne took Ward 3. In Ward 4, voters chose Jamie Restoule, and Jerome Courchesne was acclaimed in Ward 8.
West Nipissing’s voter turnout was 47.68 per cent, with 6,671 votes cast from the 13,990 registered voters.
David Briggs is a Local Journalism Initiative reporter who works out of BayToday, a publication of Village Media. The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada.
