Lynn Lau
Northern News Services

Tsiigehtchic (June 24/02) - Peter Ross has reclaimed his seat as mayor and chief of Tsiigehtchic.

In community elections June 17, Ross ran against two other candidates, Elaine Blake and Carol Norwegian.

Ross had 44 votes, Blake had 20 and Norwegian had 15.

At the age of 65, Ross is heading into his fourth term in office. He said self-government, oil and gas, and social issues will likely dominate the coming years.

Of 105 eligible voters, 80 per cent voted -- the highest voter turnout in recent memory.

All seven councillor's seats on the Gwichya Gwich'in Council were acclaimed, and for the charter community, six people ran for the two open seats.

The Gwichya Gwich'in Council had 11 candidates running for seven seats.

There was no election for the District Education Authority.

Last year, Tsiigehtchic's DEA chair and board were largely inactive.

The charter community will be stepping in shortly to make the DEA council a committee of the community's council.

"They just ran out of people, I think," says principal Dean Roop of Paul Niditchie School. Roop would ordinarily receive input from the DEA regarding school governance -- in the absence of an active board, he's been making the decisions alone. "It's a small community and there's only so many to go around. To get the community that was the main thing we were lacking this year."