Oakville voters replace long-serving mayor with former councillor

Rob Burton has served as mayor of Oakville for a long time, but his tenure ended on Monday night when voters turned to a former councillor for the next term.

The Town of Oakville released full unofficial results approximately two hours after the polls closed at 8 p.m. on Oct. 26. With all 47 polling stations reporting, Jeff Knoll emerged as the winner in a four-candidate field.

Knoll received 21,866 votes, accounting for 36.3 percent of the total. He finished well ahead of the other contenders. Sean O’Meara placed second with 13,567 votes, or 22.5 percent. Burton, the incumbent, finished third with 12,254 votes, representing 20.4 percent of the vote. Julia Hanna rounded out the top four with 10,642 votes, or 17.5 percent.

Voters also selected new representatives for every local and regional ward. In the town wards, Peter Longo won Ward 4 with 80.4 percent of the vote, while Alexandra Caldwell took Ward 1 with 48.3 percent. Other elected town councillors include Ray Chisholm in Ward 2, Morgan Elliott in Ward 3, Audrey Wubbenhorst in Ward 5, Natalia Lishchyna in Ward 6, and Scott Xie in Ward 7.

For the combined town and region wards, three candidates were acclaimed without a vote. These were Jonathan McNeice in Ward 1, Janet Haslett-Theall in Ward 3, and Tom Adams in Ward 6. In the contested regional seats, Roger Lapworth won Ward 4 with 34 percent, Mackenzie Grant took Ward 5 with 43.5 percent, and Nav Nanda secured Ward 7 with 40.5 percent. Stacey Saunders won Ward 2 with 30.3 percent.

School board trustees also changed hands across several wards. Carole Baxter won the HDSB Wards 1 and 2 seat with 82.2 percent of the vote. Rebecca Mayville took the HDSB Wards 3 and 6 position with 79.1 percent. Kim Tait won the HDSB Wards 5 and 7 seat with 27.5 percent, and Ira Davidov took the HDSB Ward 4 seat with 40.7 percent.

On the Catholic board side, Mario Jelic won the HCDSB Wards 1, 2 and 3 seat with 51.6 percent. Helena Karabela took the HCDSB Wards 5 and 6 seat with 62.2 percent. Chris Saunders was acclaimed for the HCDSB Wards 4 and 7 seat. Sonia Macaluso and Diane Courchesne were also acclaimed for their respective francophone school board seats.