Political newcomer Colin Grantham upset Joanne Vanderheyden to become Stathroy-Caradoc’s new mayor during the Oct. 24 municipal election.
Grantham received 4,032 votes compared to Vanderheyden’s 2,682. Daniel Berdan and Brad Brock finished far back in the mayoral race, receiving 127 and 115 votes, respectively.
Born and raised in Melbourne, Grantham only recently returned to the community after a long career both as a director of production at Torstar and a sales manager for FujiFilm.
Vanderheyden had served as Strathroy-Caradoc’s mayor since 2010.
Grantham said he was humbled by the confidence expressed in him by residents.
“I’m very thankful for the support I got from the community,” he said. “It was a very positive campaign – when I started in February, I started knocking on doors, I talked to a lot of people and I … heard a lot of things. I’ve done a lot of listening.
“When I saw the results I was very happy of course, but there was also sense of relief,” Grantham added with a laugh. “I’ve been working at this since Feb. 23 and I can honestly say that I never took a day off. I worked very hard. I was in sales for the latter part of my career – I’ve been in sales cycles that are pretty long, but not as physically or emotionally draining. But overall it was a fantastic experience.”
Once he takes over as mayor, Grantham said his priority will be to improve transparency in local government, something he campaigned for.
“I ran on a platform of accountability and transparency, those are my main priorities,” he said. “There are always going to be other issues…but the main thing that I heard across the community was that people here want more accountability, more transparency and more open government. They weren’t just campaign slogans for me.”
In the short-term, Grantham said he hopes to meet with other newly-elected officials to prepare for the new term.
“It’s very important to me that we have a seamless transition.”
In other election news, Mike McGuire narrowly defeated incumbent Deputy Mayor Brad Richards, with 3,540 votes for McGuire and 3,210 votes for Richards.
Councilors John Brennan, Frank Kennes and Steve Pelkman were all re-elected in the race for Ward 1. The fourth councilor for Ward 1 will be Donna Pammer.
In Ward 2, incumbent councilor Sandi Hipple cruised to victory. The other two councilors representing Ward 2 will be Brian Derbyshire and Greg Willsie.