5 newly-elected municipal leaders to watch
CBC News | Posted: May 15, 2012 2:12 PM | Last Updated: May 15, 2012
New Brunswick voters shook up the province's political landscape on Monday night, electing many new faces to council positions and turning to new mayors.
Almost every council across the province will have some new faces around the table when the next session is called to order in the next month.
There are some candidates who were elected in the first election where they could actually vote. And some fresh faces will have leadership positions in some of the province’s largest municipalities.
1. Jason Godin, Maisonnette mayor
The northeastern community of Maisonnette elected 19-year-old Jason Godin on Monday night.
Godin earned 284 votes compared to the 105 votes of his rival Sam Godin.
Jason Godin is a business administration student at the University of Moncton in Shippagan.
Godin has served on a variety of community and school boards.
There are 573 people in Maisonnette, according to the 2011 census.
2. Jordan Nowlan, Dieppe councillor
Godin will not be the only teenager sitting on a municipal council after Monday’s election.
Jordan Nowlan, 19, won an at-large council seat in Dieppe.
New Brunswick’s fastest growing city has three councillor-at-large positions.
Jody Dallaire had the most votes with 5,604, but Nowlan came in second with 5,055 votes.
Jean Gaudet finished in third position with 4,456 votes.
Both Dallaire and Gaudet were incumbent councillors.
3. Ann Seamans, Riverview mayor
There will be one new face in the mayor’s chair in the greater Moncton area.
Moncton voters re-elected George LeBlanc and Dieppe voters returned Yvon Lapierre to the mayor’s office after a seven-year political hiatus.
Across the Petitcodiac River in Riverview, Ann Seamans was elected as the town’s new mayor.
She garnered 3,067 votes compared to Donald Lenehan’s 2,053 votes and Mark Crandall’s 1,212 votes.
While Seamans is new to the mayor’s chair, she has a long history of elected politics in Riverview.
She has been on town council for 14 years and elected deputy mayor three times.
Her website says she won the endorsements of retiring Riverview mayor Clarence Sweetland and former mayor Dave Cudmore.
4. Leah Levac, Fredericton councillor
Fredericton council will have several new faces when its next council meets for the first time.
One of the surprise victories came in Ward 10 where Leah Levac emerged victorious in a very crowded field.
Levac won with 646 votes over incumbent councillor Stephen Kelly, who earned 357 votes.
Levac, who earned her PhD from the University of New Brunswick in 2011, is now an instructor at the University of New Brunswick’s Renaissance College. In her role at the university, she is a program innovator at the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership.
She is in an expert in public engagement. She worked on the provincial government’s poverty reduction task force.
Levac was a founding director with 21inc., a non-profit group that focuses on "building a community of high performing leaders and entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada."
5. Shelley Rinehart, Saint John councillor
Saint John voters sent a clear message to their elected officials signaling change on Monday night.
Incumbent mayor Ivan Court was soundly defeated by Mel Norton, who is also relatively new to the municipal scene.
That thirst for change also extended to the councillor-at-large race. There were no incumbents re-offering in the at-large race.
Shelley Rinehart, a University of New Brunswick in Saint John professor, won by far the most votes.
She garnered 15,153 votes to the 9,861 of her closest competitor, former Saint John mayor Shirley McAlary, who claimed the second at-large council seat.
There six people running for the two councillor-at-large positions.