The city’s Monday byelection came six months after the city’s former mayor and three councillors were fired by the Alberta government
Shannon Dean has been elected the next mayor of Chestermere and will head a largely fresh-faced new council, with voters in Monday’s byelection choosing to close a chapter rife with controversy in a sizable rebuke of the city’s fired mayor and councillors.
“My first thought is the same thing I told everybody whenever they told me ‘You have my support,’ or ‘I’m giving you my vote’ — and that is that I’m humbled,” said the mayor-elect on a Tuesday morning phone call with Postmedia.
“As an elected official, the residents of Chestermere are my boss, and my plan is to work every day to earn the trust of residents of Chestermere, whether they voted for me or not.
“My job is to earn their trust and to represent them and to work together to move Chestermere forward.”
Dean, a former teacher, principal and longtime community volunteer, earned 3,559 votes, 56 per cent of the total and more than three times as many as any of his competitors.
He takes the helm after more than two years of turmoil in the 25,000-person city, during which he served as a city councillor under Jeff Colvin, the ex-mayor who was removed from office by the Alberta government last December.
Colvin also ran and failed to reclaim his seat, as did the three councillors who got the boot alongside him — Mel Foat, Blaine Funk and Stephen Hanley.
“Our residents were looking for elected officials, mayor and council, who are going to be focused on doing what’s right for Chestermere and not being involved in the drama that we’ve witnessed over the last couple of years,” Dean said.
Dean was among the councillors spared from Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver’s dismissals — alongside Ritesh Narayan and Sandy Johal-Watt, the latter of whom has since resigned and taken a job in city administration. Dean, too, stepped down from his councillor role last month ahead of his successful mayoral bid.
Joining Dean on the city’s next council will be Narayan and five first-term councillors, Murray Grant, Kiran Randhawa, Janelle Sandboe, Robert Schindler, Rob Wawrzynowski, who were also elected in Monday’s vote.
Dean and the new councillors will serve for at least the next 15 months until the October 2025 municipal elections. Dean said he plans to run again in next year’s election.
“The goal now will be to work with administration and council to develop a really strong strategic plan that then becomes the basis of a run, if you will, in 2025,” he said.
The city unveiled unofficial results just before 5 a.m. Tuesday, nine hours after the polls closed at 8 p.m. Monday.
For the last six months, the city has operated without a mayor and council; a province-appointed official administrator has acted as the whole of council, and an interim chief administrative officer has led the administration.
Fired mayor, councillors fail to win re-election
The four ex-council members were dismissed on Dec. 4 in the wake of a province-ordered investigation that found the city was mismanaged. Based partly on the findings of a Deloitte-led financial probe that followed the firings, the city is now suing the four men for allegedly improperly spending $650,000 in taxpayer dollars.
Colvin and the ousted councillors have denied the city’s allegations, which have yet to be tested in court.
They’ve continually denied any claims of wrongdoing dating back to before the province unveiled the findings of its initial probe in 2023. They’ve also alleged a conspiracy related to their ouster involving McIver, Dean and the other spared councillors, the RCMP, current and former city staff, and several others — and used those allegations in their campaigns.
Each of the four men each garnered a share of Monday’s vote, but each was unsuccessful in their bid for re-election. Colvin’s name was marked on 1,072 ballots — good for third among the four mayoral candidates. Foat, Funk and Hanley earned 850, 810, and 1,035 votes, respectively; successful councillor candidates each received upward of 1,500.
Another former city mayor, Marshall Chalmers, came second in the mayoral vote with 1,102 ballots cast in his name, while longtime city councillor Christopher Steeves finished last with 627 votes.
All told, voters cast 6,360 ballots for mayor. The byelection bested numbers from the 2021 election, which saw 4,700 total votes.
Polls busy as residents hope to put city ‘back on track’
On Monday at the Chestermere Recreation Centre, residents headed to the polls in droves — many hoping to get home in time for the hockey game and more hoping for change.
“I feel like we need a lot of systemic changes within the municipal government — as well as provincial and federal. So I think getting out to vote is important … we’re just hoping for less corruption,” said resident Quinton Darcy.
On her way into the polling station, Amanda Leslie told Postmedia that “there’s been a lot of drama and misinformation — just hoping to get back on track.”
Lines — in which several residents donned blue and orange hockey jerseys — reached out the doors of the local community centre and into a busy parking lot, where residents were still pouring into the area around 5 p.m. Some waited upwards of 30 minutes to cast their ballots.
Adding further worry for hockey fans voting Monday evening, traffic in the parking lot came to a standstill a bit before 6 p.m., requiring city peace officers to come and direct traffic to quell the gridlock.
Candidate signs vandalized
The tumultuous race also saw vandalism target election signs across the city on the eve of the election.
Late Sunday or early Monday, a number of permanent structures across the city and candidate signs for Monday’s byelection were spray painted with slurs and swastikas. The city said crews were out Monday cleaning up.
“Vandalism isn’t just a petty crime, but a serious issue that affects us all. When public property is damaged, it is the responsibility of the city to ensure it’s properly repaired,” the city said in a statement on social media.
RCMP is aware of the incident, and the city urges anyone with information to call the local detachment at 403-204-8900.