By Tracey Arial
www.thesuburban.com
By creating an independent party under her own name, incumbent mayor Manon Barbe retained her position in the borough of LaSalle.
Her popularity also benefitted the rest of her team with four of her six candidates easily elected and two others facing local recounts. Monique Vallée from the Denis Coderre team will be the only opposition voice on council.
Barbe’s pro-business vision and her fiercely local stand appealed to many.
“Montreal’s strength is in her boroughs,” said Barbe, when she initially created her party, Équipe Barbe—Pro-Action LaSalle. “The boroughs are functioning just fine. Montreal’s problems aren’t there.”
Barbe beat her closest competitor Jean-François Labbé by 2,901 votes for a total of 36.61% of the vote, but other positions were harder fought.
Long-time councillors Richard Deschamps and Laura Palestini were elected as city and borough councillors for the Sault Ste Louis district with 32.58% and 34.01% of the vote respectively. Équipe Barbe newcomer Nancy Blanchet took the second borough council seat, with 3,367 votes or 31.36%.
Recounts will probably be necessary in all three Cecil P. Newman district seats.
Monique Vallée from the Denis Coderre Team won the city councillor position for Cecil P. Newman, but her lead over Luciano Di Sante from Équipe Barbe was only 141 votes.
Serge Declos and current councillor Josée Troilo were both elected as borough representatives for Cecil P. Newman. Astonishingly, both won by only 59 votes against competitors Dino Masanotti and Anju Dhillon from the Denis Coderre team.
There are 51,562 registered electors in LaSalle, but only 20,555 people casted votes for mayor. The local turnout rate of 38.86% was almost five percentage points lower than the island as a whole. The turnout rate was brought down by the Cecil P. Newman district, where only 36.61% of eligible people cast votes as opposed to the Sault Ste. Louis district’s 43.86%.
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