McDonald elected mayor
Opponent questions whether part-time position
is able to organize former petroleum conference
Sarah Ladik
Northern News Services
Thursday, October 22, 2015
INUVIK
Interim mayor Jim McDonald defeated councillor and former mayor Derek Lindsay in the Oct. 19 municipal election and will be heading up a town council with a few new faces.
Jim McDonald: Exciting time to be mayor. - NNSL file photo
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With 631 votes, Steven Baryluk was the councillor elected with the most support, followed by Joseph Lavoie with 630 votes and Natasha Kulikowski with 602 votes. Alana Mero, Kurt Wainman and Clarence Wood are returning to their seats with 573, 549, and 524 votes respectively. Council will be rounded out by former councillor Vince Sharpe with 444 votes and Darrell Christie with 419 votes. McDonald took top spot over Lindsay with 659 votes to 252.
"It's a really exciting time for me," McDonald said Oct. 20, awake and alert despite what he called a very short night.
"I wasn't thinking too much about it before but it got a bit emotional yesterday, just thinking about my parents and the legacy they left."
He said after four generations in the community, he believes residents can see his own commitment and that of his family. Although he held the position as mayor since Floyd Roland left in August to pursue a federal position, McDonald said this election does mean some change for him.
"I'm feeling good," he said.
"It looks like I had a lot of support from the community but with that comes high expectations. It's a change but I've been working for a living since I was 15 years old; I'm certainly not afraid of hard work."
Not everyone is as confident the new mayor will be able to get the job done. Lindsay said that, although he congratulated the mayor-elect and council, he's "disturbed" with what he says amounts to the institution of a part-time mayor's position.
"The town has had the wool pulled over its eyes with this part-time mayor business," he told the Drum Oct. 20.
"There is no director of economic development right now to handle the (former petroleum) conference. There's no staff there right now who have done a conference, so it's up to the mayor to step up and run it and I don't think it can be done by the mayor working part-time."
McDonald responded by saying he has committed to getting the work done, just not necessarily during office hours, and hopes to save the town some money on his salary to boot.
"I'm not going to be in the office all the time but I did make a commitment to put in whatever time is required," McDonald said.
"These things don't always happen between nine and five anyway and maybe I can save the town some money."
Voters certainly believed his message about getting the job done. Ballots cast for McDonald came just shy of the entire voter turnout for the last election in 2012.
Senior administrative officer Grant Hood said, of the approximately 2,200 eligible voters, 911 turned out, or about 41 per cent. In 2012, there were approximately 1,740 eligible voters and 670 cast a ballot, for a 38 per cent turnout.
Candidates not elected include Bright Lubansa with 374 votes, Tony Devlin with 372 votes, Michael Fabijan with 343 votes and Abdallah El Bekai with 207 votes.
"I was very pleased with the high voter turnout," said re-elected councillor Clarence Wood.
"This council will truly reflect the wishes of the people. I want to congratulate the new mayor and councillors. I am sorry that everyone who ran didn't get elected. I look forward to the next three years as we are facing some tough times. However Inuvik has always been resilient and I know there are better times ahead."
