New mayor for Lakeshore as Bailey defeats Bain

The Municipality of Lakeshore will have a new mayor for the first time since 2006.

Tracey Bailey has upset four-term incumbent Tom Bain for the mayor's seat.

Bailey won the race with 5,638 votes, 2,191 more votes than Bain's 3,447.

With four new faces around the council table when the new term begins, Bailey says training will be important to get the new members up to speed.

"There's a lot going on as usual, there's a lot of challenges ahead of us but we need to make sure that all of our new members have insights, challenges and strategic planning coming up, so everybody is up to speed," she says.

Bailey says road improvements and sewage concerns seem to be the top issues raised by the newly elected councillors.

"We have some things that we know that we need to address right away, so those will be the big things. The people elected tonight will have a big impact on Lakeshore and our region," she adds.

Bain has been in politics for 44 years, which includes time with the former town of Rochester as a councillor and mayor, and then running for council when Essex County’s municipalities merged in 1999. He also served nine years as warden of Essex County.

He says he's disappointed.

"I think I've given my life to politics to better Lakeshore and then to get defeated like this. Certainly I'm proud, I ran a good clean race," he says.

Bain says one of the thing he's most proud of is nine years as warden of Essex County, an Ontario record and 44 years of service to the municipality.

He's also proud of about getting the Atlas Tube Centre built.

"I worked hard to get $34.6-million in grant. Probably one of the biggest grants in this area," he adds.

Current Ward 5 councillor Kirk Walstedt is the new deputy mayor after defeating former councillor Dave Monk by 565 votes.

Ryan McNamara is the new councillor for Ward 1, Paddy Byrne is the newly elected Ward 2 councillor, Kelsey Santarossa returns for a second term in Ward 3, John Kerr has been reelected in Ward 4, Ian Ruston will replace deputy mayor-elect Walstedt as the new councillor for Ward 5, while Larissa Vogler is the new councillor for Ward 6.

Unofficial election results provided by the Municipality of Lakeshore. The certified election results are expected to be made available on Tuesday, Oct. 25.

Mayor
Bailey, Tracey -  5,638
Bain, Tom -  3,447

Deputy Mayor 
Monk, Dave - 4,154
Walstedt, Kirk - 4,719

Ward 1 - Councillor
McNamara, Ryan - 974
Panasiuk, Nick - 298

Ward 2 - Councillor
Byrne, Paddy - 605
Hoffman, Michael - 468

Ward 3 - Councillor
Butera, Giovanni - 483
Santarossa, Kelsey - 837
Seddik, Mohamed - 54

Ward 4 - Councillor
Alderson, Jennifer - 628
Aubin, Sarah - 188
Kerr, John - 1,327

Ward 5 - Councillor
Anhorn, Steve - 312
McDermott, Tim - 647
Ruston, Ian - 656

Ward 6 - Councillor
Cecile, David - 178
Larue, David - 151
Vogler, Larissa - 1,084

Please note, uncertified results for Lakeshore's local school board candidates will be combined with results from other municipalities and shared as soon as possible.