Voters in Hay River mostly returned incumbents to office Oct. 18.
Two newcomers, Peter Magill and Karen Wall, will join reelected incumbents Robert Bouchard (417 votes), Emily Chambers (331), Keith Dohey (470), Linda Duford (462), Jeff Groenewegen (350) and Brian Willows (365).
Only Kim Brockway (324) and Keanan Kipling (291) were unsuccessful in becoming elected.
Mayor Kandis Jameson was acclaimed.
Magill, the tourism and economic development coordinator for the municipality had a strong showing for his first attempt with 438 votes.
Wall had 337 votes to finish seventh.
She was watching results come in from home on Monday night.
“I’m thrilled and I’m looking forward to the next term,” she said. “I want to congratulate all the candidates that ran because it takes a lot of courage to put your name out there.
“I’m really excited to get started and I think we have a good and diverse team.”
One of the first tasks for new councillors will be to tackle the 2022 budget. Wall said she is looking forward to better learning about how municipal finances are done.
Heather Coakwell, returning officer of the election, reported a voting turnout of 29.41 percent of town’s population which resulted in 632 voters.
There was one advanced poll on Oct. 5 and five polls available on voting day. “I think (voting day) went smoothly,” she said. “We had enough polls obviously and we got people in and out the door quickly because of covid. Polls closed at 7 p.m. and we were done at about a quarter to nine the tallying and counting and what not.”
Village of Fort Simpson
Other municipal elections in the territory included The Village of Fort Simpson which also had an acclaimed mayor in Sean Whelly.
The new council for the village are Liza McPherson (154 votes), James Tsetso (154), Les Wright (152), Muaz Hassan (171), Rosemary Gill (147), Kyle Christiansen (126), Cynthia Browning (174), and Troy Bellefontaine (180).
Chris Snider (55), Randal Sibbeston (56), Celine Antoine (80), Charles Blyth (87), John Dempsey (101), Kirby Groat (79) and Walter Blondin (52) were unsuccessful.
The Town of Fort Smith also held an election which included a race for mayor between Jessica Cox and Fred Daniels.
Results were still coming in late Oct. 18.