Mayoral elect Linnsie Clark poses for a photo in front of city hall following Monday's election. The News announced Clark was re-elected early Tuesday in a close election race.--NEWS PHOTO BRENDAN MILLER
bmiller@medicinehatnews.com
After the dust settled and votes tallied, Hatters decided to re-elect Linnsie Clark as their mayor for another four-year term, and the only incumbent returning to council chambers in November.
Although official election results won’t be posted until noon Friday, Clark received 5,844 votes in a close race against former MLA Drew Barnes, who received 5,092.
Remaining mayoral votes were split between Kris Samraj (3,576) votes, Andy McGrogan (2,378), Alan Rose (834) and Mark Fisher (309).
Clark reflected on a difficult past four-year term in which current councillors approved a list of sanctions, reducing her presiding duties and her pay before a Calgary judge reversed most in a judicial hearing.
Following the judicial hearing the province stepped in and conducted a 207-page municipal report by an independent inspector, which found the municipality had been managed in an irregular, improper and improvident manner.
“Coming off of a difficult four years, I could not have done this without the support of my family and my friends,” said Clark. “We have amazing volunteers and I’m genuinely overwhelmed and grateful for everything that people did.”
Learning from both mistakes and successes during her first term, Clark says she is anticipating a new start with a fresh set of new faces on council, and says she plans to focus on improving communication both internally at city hall and with the public.
“Communication, I think, is critical,” said Clark. “How we communicate internally, with the public and with the broader community. We need to make sure that we’re up to date on how people communicate and really get effective at following through on those feedback loops, so that no person feels like they haven’t gotten an answer.”
Clark also wants to bring back more face-to-face conversations with citizens and hopes to engage in more town hall-style meetings aimed to gather important feedback and foster direct community engagement from Hatters.
“I’d like to reinstate town halls. We were doing that for a while and it was a very, very effective way to hear from our community, and some of that in-person, back and forth can lead to better understanding than emails.”
Clark says town halls could be held at a variety of facilities around the city, including the Veiner Centre and with community organizations like the Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce.
Moving forward, Clark also shared optimism about working with a new set of councillors who will bring a fresh perspective, and once again echoed the need for transparent conversations among members.
“Where I think we’re going to be able to gain some momentum is communicating with each other, and communicating our hopes for the next four years to each other and building that team where we truly do support each other.”
However, Clark does expect new councillors will have to endure some “growing pains” as they learn their new role and procedures of council. Only two declared thus far, Ted Clugston and Bill Cocks, have experience serving in the role in the past.
“There will be some growing pains and (we’ll) need some time to get to know each other,” said Clark. “And how we want to run our council meetings, because truly, the council meetings are councils, and so how we interact with each other in those meetings and what each of our roles and responsibilities are, and in the broader sense, of our role as councillors. I’m looking forward to sorting that out.”
This term, Clark is heading into the leadership role without nearly the same mandate as 2021 when she received more than 66 per cent of the vote. She received just 32.4 support this go-round, less than half what she earned four years ago. Despite the close race against former MLA Drew Barnes, Clark says she plans to represent all Hatters no matter how they voted.
“It really felt inspiring to me that so many people chose to vote, chose to participate in their democracy and I think that’s a good sign for the future,” said Clark. “I am here to represent all Hatters, that’s one of my main messages is that I think the city should govern for all Hatters.”
The new council has big decisions to make in the near future, including finalizing next year’s budget, voting on a new multi-million dollar outdoor aquatics centre capital project, a revised transportation master plan, working with the Mustard Seed to find a permanent shelter location, updating utility rate classification and deciding to approve several funding requests, including a large ask from the Medicine Hat Exhibition & Stampede.
All candidates will be officially sworn in at a ceremony in council chambers on Nov. 3.
