Town council will be welcoming one new member, Don Padlesky, at its next meeting, following Oct. 18 municipal elections. Padlesky received the most support in the election by collecting 938 votes, followed by Trevor Kotowich, 897, Gary Ward, 883, Ken Kwiatkowski, 861, Danny White, 847 and Pat Gratton, 832.
“I am overwhelmed and tired,” said Padlesky. “We worked hard and knocked on close to 1,200 doors.”
He said that his top priority is now going to be to go through all the comments that he collected by going door to door, organize and prioritize them. He is planning to bring them into town council.
“I just want to thank John Trefanenko for all his hard work over these many years,” said Padlesky. Trefanenko will not be returning to town council, after 20 years of service, as he received only 656 votes. He was mayor of the Town of St. Paul for 15 years and councillor for another nine years. The eighth candidate running for town council, challenger Don Mudryk, was also not elected as he received 418 votes.
“I am very disappointed, I was ready to serve for another three years,” said Trefanenko after the election, adding he wanted to continue working on strengthening the St. Paul Safer Communities Task Force.
“We have a good committee and we lost our funding in March but we were re-applying for a new grant. We wanted to implement a crime reduction program in the community,” explained Trefanenko.
He was also the town representative on the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA) and was hoping that the association would lobby the provincial government to come up with an equitable funding policy for policing.
“I have enjoyed the 24 years serving this community and I would have loved to serve again. I had the commitment and the excitement,” said Trefanenko.
Trevor Kotowich is one of the incumbents returning to office.
“I am one of the old faces being re-elected and I am very grateful to the citizens of St. Paul for returning me to office for another three year term,” said Kotowich. “The turnout was good and I am very happy with the results.”