Andy Letham will lead the City of Kawartha Lakes for another term after being re-elected mayor on Tuesday night.
The 56-year-old Letham earned the victory in the Central Ontario municipality, defeating incumbent councillors Gord James and Brian Junkin along with activist Peter Weygang.
Letham garnered 11,434 votes, clipping James who received 9,878 votes. Junkin finished third with 2,724 votes and Weygang netted 1,007 votes.
“We worked pretty hard and accomplished some good things,” said Letham. “It’s nice to see the support continue for another four years.”
Voters in the predominantly rural riding received an additional 24 hours to vote after the online voting system was disrupted due to a high volume.
Letham was first elected mayor in 2014 when he garnered more than 16,000 votes – more than 11,300 than the runner-up Donna Villemare in the five-person race. Letham twice was runner-up to former mayor Ric McGee in both 2006 and 2010 (losing by 1,128 votes).
The mayor will lead a much smaller council this term as eight councillors were elected as opposed to the traditional 16.
Council consists of:
Mayor – Andy Letham
Ward 1 – Emmett Yeo
Ward 2 – Kathleen Seymour-Fagan
Ward 3 – Doug Elmslie
Ward 4 – Andrew Veale
Ward 5 – Pat Dunn
Ward 6 – Ron Ashmore
Ward 7 – Patrick O’Reilly
Ward 8 – Tracy Richardson