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It won’t be easy for new council

As far as campaigns are concerned, the 2016 civic election campaign in Estevan was fairly low-key.

As far as campaigns are concerned, the 2016 civic election campaign in Estevan was fairly low-key.

After all, the three candidates who ran for mayor and the nine who ran for councillor voiced their support for the direction Estevan city council has taken during the past four years. They backed council’s plan to pay down the debt, they seemed happy with the management team the city now has in place, and they were impressed with efforts to beautify the city.

We knew there would be change among the councillor ranks. It was just a matter of how much change would happen.

As it turns out, there was a lot.

Roy Ludwig was returned for another term as mayor, which was expected. This is not a knock against challengers James Halladay and Rhyan Hagel, but neither has been on council before. It’s asking a lot for a first-time mayoral candidate to beat someone who has been on council for 22 years.

The change came among the councillor ranks. Shelly Veroba, Travis Frank and Lyle Yanish were all elected. They’ll join Greg Hoffort, Trevor Knibbs and Dennis Moore on council.

Kevin Smith and Brian Johnson are out. Johnson’s defeat was surprising, since he had been on council for 16 years. And while he had his detractors, he was always re-elected.

While the people who ran for council voiced support for the direction of the past four years, one has to wonder if the general populace felt the same.

Or perhaps they felt there were just some really impressive first-time candidates in what was a deep field for councillor.

Voter turnout was down by nearly 600 from the 2012 election, but a surge in voters likely wouldn’t have made a difference in the end results. 

Regardless, the new council has to tackle some key issues.

They need to continue to pay down the debt, a task that the previous council has done a good job of in the past three years.

They have to balance debt repayments with infrastructure needs in the city. The asphalt patches that were applied in the city this year helped remedy problems with local roads, but there are still issues to be resolved with King Street, Perkins Street, Fifth Street, the eastern blocks of Sixth Street, the east industrial area and many residential roads.

They also have to decide whether to continue with beautification efforts, which were well-received this year. One of the best things the new council can do is pay close attention to the advice of parks manager Rod March, who is one of the best management additions for the city in years.

And council will have to handle the myriad of issues that come up throughout the term.

Running a city is never easy. So good luck to our new council. They’re going to need it.