When asked how her second win feels, Marianne Alto said it is thrilling. “I have to say it’s quite exciting.”
Voters in Victoria have decided Marianne Alto will have a second term as mayor, but they also decided that the council she leads needed a refresh.
According to preliminary results Saturday night, Alto had nearly 45 per cent of the popular vote, outpacing her nearest challengers Bruce McGuigan and Mike Harris, who pulled 34 and 11 per cent, respectively.
Incumbent councillors Stephen Hammond, Matt Dell, Jeremy Caradonna, Marg Gardiner and Dave Thompson were all re-elected, while their colleagues Susan Kim and Krista Loughton came up short.
As things stood Saturday night, there could be three new faces at the table, with preliminary numbers suggesting Jack Sandor, Melissa Cseszko and Wendy Bowkett won enough support to edge out 13 other candidates.
Numbers were preliminary, and some of those council positions could change when the final count is done.
When asked how her second win feels, Alto said it is thrilling. “I have to say it’s quite exciting. I think of this job as being an incredible opportunity, and to think that people evaluated your first term and based on that gave you a second is really super humbling.”
She said it’s an endorsement that they are on the right track, but she noted that new people on council also means people want some change.
Alto said she will ensure there will be space for new ideas and new approaches, and that she has heard the demand from the community for improved engagement with city hall.
“I think that the city doesn’t do a great job of its own storytelling or of hearing the stories of others,” she said. “And so I think that has to be a new focus for the next term for sure. And frankly not just for the next term, but for a different way of having the city function.”
McGuigan said he hopes the new council will take some lessons from the issues raised during the campaign.
“I’m very hopeful that the message that our whole campaign was putting out about citizen engagement stays with the candidates who win,” he said. “I think that’s the most important thing we can do. I think we have a real serious problem culturally and politically. That could be helped a bit by citizens working together.
“People have to feel like they have a say between elections.”
McGuigan said he is disappointed in the results, but even more so in the system.
“I’m disappointed that candidates from outside who don’t live in the city can run. That’s just silly,” he said. “I think the Elections Act needs to be changed.”
Alto lives in Saanich, while Harris lives in Langford. Harris won nearly 3,000 votes, which may have pushed McGuigan’s vote count beyond Alto if all of those votes had gone to him.
McGuigan said his campaign took a hit when the provincial election campaign started as he lost a number of volunteers who decided to work for provincial parties.
“That’s where they thought the more important battle was. And that hurt our campaign a lot,” he said.
And while it was not a binding question, voters in Victoria indicated they were in favour of amalgamation with Saanich. Nearly 62 per cent voted in favour of joining with Saanich.
The issue did not get much air time during the campaign likely because the province decided the vote would not be binding.
Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Christine Boyle told Saanich and Victoria she was not prepared to authorize a binding referendum vote because there were outstanding questions about the financial implications of amalgamation, and there was a need for more in-depth consultation with First Nations.
A 48-member Victoria-Saanich Citizens’ Assembly, created in 2018 after residents of the two municipalities voted in favour of studying amalgamation, had looked for months at the pros and cons of merging the region’s two largest municipalities. Last spring, it recommended that Victoria and Saanich pursue amalgamation.
The voter turnout in Victoria was just over 38 per cent, according to preliminary results, up slightly from the 36 per cent in 2022.
City staff were working over the last several days to ensure as many votes as possible could be counted. Staff were driving to the homes of voters who had requested mail-in ballots and picking them up to be returned to the city for counting before 8 p.m. Saturday night.