Riepma wins the crowded race in Ward 1

It started with nine, but there could only be one in Ward 1.

Clare Riepma is the new councillor-elect for Ward 1 after a nine-candidate race came to an end Monday night.

With 29.7% of the vote and 122 votes ahead of his closest competitor, Shaughna Ainsworth, Riepma replaces the retired Bonnie Ainsworth and will sit on council for the first time.

BarrieToday caught up with Riepma at his home celebrating with his family and asked how he felt throughout the day and how they kept their mind off of it.

“We were just at home and trying to follow along on the internet and on our phones,” Riepma said. “I’ve got my family here with three of my daughters and some sons-in-law, my in-laws and my father-in-law, who is 95 years old and insisted on coming.

"We had a real family gathering and a nice night together.”

The final tally for each candidate was Riepma 29.7%, Ainsworth 25.98%, Ryan Cardwell 15.68%, Ann-Marie Kungl 11.28%, Dusko Jankov 5.67%, Graham Allary 5.37%, Avery Konda 3.45%, Erin Hennigar 1.86% and Cole Walsh, despite announcing he was pulling out of the race early on, with 1.86%

“My thoughts throughout were, 'Jeez, this is close and I don’t know if I’m going to win,' but that says something about the strength of the ward candidates,” Riepma said. “It was a great race with eight running and it was a fun campaign.

"I have a lot of respect for the others that ran and I have a lot of respect for those that ran, they had a lot of great ideas and it was a good clean race which is nice," he added. 

Riepma said that he plans to meet up with his fellow candidates now that the race is over to still discuss their ideas. 

“I’m hoping that the other seven candidates will feed me ideas and I will have contact with them throughout this four-year term, I’m sure,” said Riepma. “I think it can only be very helpful actually and I feel honestly like we’ll all work together in this for the good of Ward 1 and the people in it.

"I’ve been working with councils for many years so I’ll probably jump right in, and I know there will be a bit of a learning curve at first to catch up on where things are but, I’m confident I will hit the ground running," he added. 

The new term of council will be sworn in Dec. 1.