More Of The Same

Not much really changed municipally last night. Most people believed that the incumbents were doing a good job for Windsor or rather, gave them the benefit of the doubt, believing that they needed another term to carry out their plans. Now the incumbents better deliver!

It was an interesting night. It looked like the incumbents did a better job of getting the vote out than did their challengers. I think that the tactic of starting the race late--nothing really happened until early October--helped as well. The challengers seemed to wait too long before getting out to make their names and faces better known.

I think most of them were suckered by the Eminence Grise who outplayed them. You do not beat incumbents by starting so late.

The Mayor received big numbers obviously but David Wonham did surprisingly well for a 2-week campaign with little money and a candidate who was virtually unknown. It proves that Chicken jokes still work. What will be interesting to see is whether Dr. Dave sticks around a bit and continues to speak out as one of the few voices to talk against what is going on in town. My suspicion is that a few people hope that he will since they don't want to be the "bad guys," not yet anyway.

The Councillor votes were not that big a surprise. Councillor Budget in Ward 1 will have a Wardmate who knows how to handle himself and who won't let himself be pushed around. His business credentials are more than a match for those of Councillor Brister.

I was shocked about Ward 2, not about Councillor Postma winning---candidates Growe and Petoran split the vote as I said so she snuck in- but by the showing of Chris Schnurr whom I thought was the class of the Ward. Just goes to show that one cannot always believe what is told to you at the door by residents!

Tony Blak did better this time in Ward 3 but did not get the necessary votes to beat the incumbents. As for Ward 5, the expected happened.

Ward 4 was the big shock of the evening: Ken Lewenza winning! It was not a surprise about Bill Marra after the arena fiasco but I am surprised that Ed Sleiman did not win. How Ken and Bill will work together should be interesting to watch. As for David Cassivi, one wonders if his vote would have been the same if he had not done an arena flip-flop.

In the end, not much changed. But a lot did. Eddie Francis is a self-proclaimed lame duck mayor who may leave municipal politics early in a year anyway as he runs for the PCs provincially. He could barely control his Council previously so how will he do it when at least 5-6 of the Councillors have ambitions to be mayor. The Governor's hubby will be busy for this term.

I must admit that I do not see Bill Marra playing the Leader of the Opposition role early on since he would be out by himself for awhile. No one else will stand with him now, especially the rookies, to challenge the re-elected Mayor right away. His mayor-candidates are not necessarily going to help him so he looks good at their expense. He has to pretend to work with Eddie for a bit because he is a "nice guy" and after all, Gord Henderson offered the olive branch by supporting him!

Expect Alan Halberstadt to go out first to try and win the next Mayoral campaign before the others even get started. How else to explain what he has been saying on his BLOG and how he is carving out positions for himself before the others know what hit them.

For all the money that DRTP spent, especially in South Windsor... wow, the OMERS pensioners should be angry at the lack of success! The big DRTP tunnel supporter in Ward 1 did not make it! Both Brister and Dilkens oppose the DRTP tunnel. Poor Mike.