Over 65 per cent of approximately 300 eligible voters in Exshaw turned out Monday (Oct. 21) to choose the two councillors who will represent them over the next four years.
Incumbents Dene Cooper and Paul Ryan received clear mandates from voters by winning approximately 75 per cent of the votes with Cooper receiving 168 votes and Ryan, 154.
Their opponents in the municipal election, Janet Brygger and Anthony Cinkant, received 51 and 10 votes, respectively.
“I’m extremely honoured by the support shown and I’m very pleased with the percent of voter turnout. That really spoke well of the democratic response in the community,” Cooper said. “Voters are looking for effective leadership and they listened to the conversations and the ballots are cast and the numbers are counted and we’re moving on. The public has spoken with clarity.”
Cooper added the immediate priorities for council would be creek mitigation work, including berms, and ensuring work is completed before next spring.
“The direction I have from my community is to move wisely forward and to make it happen,” Cooper said. “There’s a whole lot of work ahead of all of us. If we can stand up in a flood situation and stand tall, we can get through the recovery too.”
Ryan said he sees the results as a message that voters “like what we are doing and they want us to keep on doing it,” especially given that much of the work in the next four years will be related to flood recovery.
“I never stopped working and the immediate priorities are dealing with the costs of the floods, but also to move forward on some of the environmental issues we have locally in terms of fugitive dust. We’re just going to keep our sleeves rolled up,” Ryan said.
“I can tell you that going around banging on doors, issues that Dene and I already tackled before the election was called, were issues that were already priorities in the minds of the local residents and they want us to keep doing what we are doing.”
Cooper thanked Brygger and Cinkant with initiating a conversation in the community.
“My opposition, to their credit, brought out a valid conversation in the election thinking. I have to recognize what they did; they brought out a conversation that needed to occur,” he said.
