Three incumbents are being joined by three new faces at the council table in North Battleford.
Incumbents Kelli Hawtin, Don Buglas and Greg Lightfoot were all re-elected, with Kevin Steinborn, Len Taylor and Kent Lindgren joining them.
And a lot of big names, including Wayne Ray, Grace Lang, Don Salie and incumbent Cathy Richardson, ended up on the outside looking in.
The unofficial tally with all 19 polls reporting showed Steinborn, former North Battleford deputy fire chief, topping the field with 1.,273, Hawtin with 1,257, Taylor with 1,232, Lightfoot and Buglas tied with 1,129, and Lindgren claiming the sixth and final spot with 1,062, edging out Richardson with 1,051.
The rest of the field saw Herman Bugler Jr. receive 904 votes, former councillor Grace Lang with 774, Guy Turcotte 725, former mayor Wayne Ray 603, Darren Olson 448, former councillor Don Salie 392, Steve Cormons 375 and Colin Evans 190.
Results will be declared official at 11 a.m. Friday morning by city returning officer Debbie Wohlberg.
The six councillors will join mayor-elect Ryan Bater, who was acclaimed as mayor in September, at the council table beginning with the swearing-in ceremonies on Nov. 7.
City Hall was where all the action was on election night. Candidates gathered in council chambers to watch results from all polling places posted on the big screen. Reporters were also there to cover the results live, with Access 7 TV doing an election-night broadcast from chambers as well.
Despite a crowded field of experienced challengers it turned out to be a good night for most incumbents. For Buglas it is his fifth win in a row, and the second in a row for Hawtin and Lightfoot.
"Very humbled," was the reaction of Lightfoot when the results were in. He credited meeting the people during the campaign for his win. "Definitely get out there and talk to a lot of people and find out what the issues are, and make sure that you're listening to the folks in the community."
He adds that "most people were happy with the way the community was going. We've tried our best to keep taxes low, we've taken a fairly proactive approach to fixing our infrastructure issue. And we've definitely done a fairly good job putting together a good safety strategy." Lightfoot also said people were happy with some of the actions downtown.
While Taylor is a newcomer to this next council, he is far from an unfamiliar face in politics. His political experience has spanned the federal and provincial level, but it has been a long time since the last council meeting Taylor attended. He was on council from 2000 to 2003, during the water crisis years.
"It's been a while," said Taylor. "I was there during cryptosporidium time, (I) learned an awful lot about how council works and all those sorts of things pretty quickly. Of course I've done a few things since then, but I've never lost my interest in the city of North Battleford and its citizens."
Taylor was also happy to see a council with both experience and some youth to it. He was pleased to see Lindgren, an HIV project co-ordinator who has been active in politics with the local NDP, get elected as well.
"The city of North Battleford has an awful lot of young, active people," said Taylor. "I was very happy to see that Kelli (Hawtin) was running again and that Kent was putting his name into the race. I was thinking at that point a mix of older, experienced council members and new, active young people in the community would make a dynamic council. So I'm very happy that both Kelli and Kent will be sitting around the council table with a couple of us older guys."
Perhaps the biggest winner of the night was Steinborn. He was known in the community from his days as a deputy fire chief and as chair of HUB, but never expected a first-place finish among the 15 candidates.
"I'm very proud and honoured and very surprised," said Steinborn, who said he was hoping simply for a fifth or sixth place finish to get on council.
"I think just me working with the City, with the fire department over the last 30 years, a lot of people in the city got to know me and got to know how passionate I was for the protection and safety of the citizens of North Battleford. Like I said, I didn't expect this at all. I just wanted to run, be an ear for the community and a voice ... I'm just very proud of the outcome and I'm very proud of the team I'm going to be able to work for and work with, and we'll make some positive changes."
It was obvious from early on in the count that Steinborn, Hawtin and Taylor were headed for victory. The battle for the last spot on council proved especially tight between Richardson and Lindgren, with Lindgren managing to come from behind to prevail with the results from the very last poll to come in.
Results were initially slow to arrive, but after about 40 minutes a flood of results started to come in and counting was done by roughly 10 p.m.
The city council race was not the only one in North Battleford on Wednesday.
Results are also in for the three Living Sky school board seats in North Battleford and the winners are Richard Hiebert with 794, Glenn Wouters with 785, and David Garth Link with 777. Finishing fourth was Margaret-Rose Uvery with 414.
Overall, 2,563 voters went to the polls in North Battleford, for an estimated voter turnout of 20.6 per cent, according to the City's news release Thursday morning. Voter turnout was up from 17.5 per cent in the last election in 2012.
