The public has spoken, and Jackie Clayton has unofficially become the first woman to ever be elected mayor of the City of Grande Prairie.
As election results started to trickle in on Monday evening, the vote split between Clayton and second-place vote-getter Eunice Friesen was razor-thin. However, as votes continued to pour in, Clayton extended her lead and finished Monday with an unofficial tally of 4,270, ahead of Friesen with 4,135.
The third and fourth place candidates, Bryan Petryshyn and Glyn Grüner, received 837 and 310 votes respectively.
There will be plenty of new faces around city hall as well with five new councillors unofficially being voted on to Grande Prairie city council.
Incumbent Chris Thiessen received the most votes of all council members with 5,515 ballots cast, or 9.86 per cent of the total vote, followed closely by second-place vote-getter and first-time councillor Grant Berg, who picked up 5,014 votes.
Set to join them on council will be incumbents Dylan Bressey and Kevin O’Toole, followed by newcomers Wendy Bosch, John Lehners, Gladys Blackmore, and Mike O’Connor. The only incumbent not to be reelected is Yad Minhas, who received the ninth highest amount of votes.
Full unofficial election results with all polls reporting:
Chris Thiessen – 5,515 votes – 9.86%
Grant Berg – 5,014 votes – 8.97%
Dylan Bressey – 4,493 votes – 8.03%
Kevin P. O’Toole 4,103 – votes – 7.34%
Wendy Bosch – 3,803 votes – 6.80%
John Lehners – 3,719 votes – 6.65%
Gladys Blackmore – 3,330 votes – 5.90%
Mike O’Connor – 3,284 votes – 5.87%
Yad Minhas – 3,010 votes – 5.38%
Kevin McLean – 2,985 votes – 5.34%
Tammy Brown – 2,923 votes – 5.23%
Solomon Okhifoh – 2,765 votes – 4.94%
Melissa J. Erickson – 2,410 votes – 4.31%
Neil Tuazon – 1,967 votes – 3.52%
Ejibola Folashade Adetokunbo-Taiwo – 1,832 votes – 3.28%
Sarvinder Singh – 1,582 votes – 2.83%
Michelle Lana Jasper – 1,554 votes – 2.87%
Gerald Scott Hafner – 1,209 votes – 2.16%
Paul Rovin Ngemital – 454 votes – 0.81%
It’s expected official results will be tabulated and released no later than Friday, October 22nd.
