History was made in the race for North Bay City Council.
For the first time, a father and daughter have been elected to sit on council. And the two top positions are being held by women.
Tanya Vrebosch who has spent the last 11 years on council, unofficially garnered 7297 votes, or 7 percent of voter support, earning her the top position of Deputy Mayor.
Her father, Bill Vrebosh, former Mayor of East Ferris, ran in his first municipal election in North Bay, finishing fifth, right in the middle of the pack.
“The fact that I’m on council with my dad is probably one of the proudest moments that I ever had. The whole time I think I was telling people to vote for him, and he was telling people to vote for me. The fact that we are both on council is going to be a very interesting but wonderful next four years,” said Vrebosch.
As Deputy Mayor, Vrebosch also becomes budget chief.
“At one point over the years, we had a little bit of a change on council, and I was deputy mayor for one year. I have a really good working relationship with our Chief Financial Officer, Margaret Karpenko in the financial department,” said Vrebosch.
“I now have to get my head back from doing roads and bridges, and back into the numbers game, because we’re going to be jumping right into a budget. The first thing we have to do is work on our communication. It should be the first thing we tackle because we’re going to get into a budget with brand new people and we have to figure out where people are at, what they’re passionate about. Budgets have gone awry because people didn’t communicate.”
Rounding out the top two positions is newcomer Johanne Brousseau who at last posting, finished 272 votes behind Vrebosch.
“It is a great feeling. I thought I would be in the bottom ten. During my campaign, I knew I couldn’t promise tax cuts and I can’t promise efficiencies at city hall when I’ve never been here and looked at it as an employee. So I promise to be prepared, attend meetings, do my research to make fact-based decisions and be open-minded,” said Brousseau.
“I’m not coming in green. I have been sitting on boards for 20 years. I know to respect democracy. I know I need to learn really fast. I don’t know what I want to chair as one of the top three finishers. I want to work as a team with the rest of council.”
Finishing in third spot is incumbent Mike Anthony.
“I really hope we can get a return to respect and decorum in the chambers. I haven’t gotten involved in it, but we’ve really lost that in the last few years, and I’ve tried to lead by example. And I hope now with some fresh faces we can really turn the page on that and get respect and decorum for presenters, from councillor to councillor,” said Anthony.
“One of the things I want to do is engage the energy of millennials. I want to see if council will support me in getting a youth committee formed so we can hear from them regularly. These are folks who have more power in the palm of their hand than NORAD had during the Cold War. So, let’s get their input on what they want to see in North Bay. Other things are already on the books. We’ve got to get that arena settled, and we have to figure out a future for a festival or festivals.”
Voters looking for a mix of experience and fresh new faces to represent them on council got what they wanted.
In a municipal election, which has often been described as long, and sometimes combative, the electorate re-elected five incumbents, leaving five new faces to round things out.
In the race for city councillor, 26 people were vying for 10 seats. Two of those seats were left vacant. Sheldon Forgette decided to give up his seat as Deputy Mayor to run in the mayoral race, and Councillor Darryl Vaillancourt announced he would not be seeking re-election.
Longtime city councillor George Maroosis finished in 11th place, just off the mark by 141 votes, behind newcomer and the youngest member of the new council, 23-year-old Marcus Tignanelli who secured the final seat.
Also not returning for another term are Derek Shogren, and Jeff Serran who finished 13th and 14th, with just 30 votes separating the pair.
Voter turnout was 45 per cent.
