Yellowknife (Oct 22/03) - It was the incumbents' race to lose, and lose they did not.

Monday's municipal election saw all five incumbents regain their seats, while another former councillor netted the most votes. Of the newcomers, only Doug Witty and Mark Heyck were left standing to claim seats on Yellowknife city council.

First place finisher Bob Brooks, Heyck and Witty will join incumbents Wendy Bisaro, David McCann, Blake Lyons, Kevin O'Reilly and Alan Woytuik representing Yellowknife residents for the next three years.

A small, subdued group gathered at City Hall Monday night to watch the results come in for the municipal and school board elections.

Bisaro, the only woman in the race, said the work she has done on both council and the school board in the past helped her regain her seat.

She plans to continue the work already brought forth by the previous council. "The waterfront plan, the downtown strategy and we have to implement the general plan," said Bisaro.

Brooks, no stranger to City Hall, cited a lack of planning and development as a major issue for voters.

Brooks noted while he works well with the mayor and with others on council, he expects to have "really good debates with Kevin O'Reilly," with whom he is "always at odds with" and with whom he has debated in the past.

O'Reilly, meanwhile, was pleased with his 5th place standing and 1,824 votes received.

"Planning and development is something I focused a good part of my campaign on and we need to get the general plan finished and a complete revision to the zoning bylaw."

Heyck said the general plan and enhancing the downtown core are two major issues he would like to tackle.

Seventh-place finisher Witty said one of the issues he feels strongly about is the clean-up at Giant Mine.

"I don't buy into the frozen core concept," said Witty.

"I know it's going to be more expensive for the government to actually mine the arsenic back out and deal with it, but we have to think about what's going to happen to that mine in 1,000 or 100 years from now."

Voter turnout at the polls was 42 per cent for council and school board elections. Ratepayer turnout was 48 per cent.