Former Halifax school board member and past PC Party Association president Paul Russell will be the new councillor for Lower Sackville, according to unofficial results released by the Halifax Regional Municipality.
Russell, who works in software development, received 30.5 per cent of the votes during Saturday's District 15 byelection.
He has been involved in the Sackville Community Development Association, the Sackville Rivers Association and the Lake District Recreation Association. He previously sat on HRM's planning advisory community.
The seat opened up when the former councillor, Steve Craig, jumped to provincial politics, winning a seat as a Tory in the Nova Scotia Legislature in June.
Ten people were vying for the position. The municipality's unofficial results said 3,613 residents voted.
Constituents concerned about speeding
Russell said he was "thrilled" to learn he'll be representing his home of more than 20 years.
"I couldn't imagine living anywhere else and I simply would like to continue making Sackville a better place. And I very much appreciate and I'm thankful that the community, that they have put me in this position where I'm able to do that," he said.
During the campaign he and his team knocked on about 4,000 doors in the constituency, roughly half of the homes in Lower Sackville, said Russell. One issue that came up again and again was traffic.
"By far the No. 1 concern that people had was speed on neighborhood streets. People saying, you know, my street is especially bad because of [that]. And we would hear this all over Lower Sackville. It was really quite concerning but also something that has to be addressed," he said.
After hearing from people in the Sackville Manor Trailer Park who struggle to cross Highway 101, Russell said he decided to explore the possibility of constructing a tunnel to create a pedestrian walkway.
Another revelation on the campaign trail was how many people struggle with homelessness.
Russell's term only runs for a year and he acknowledges that may make it challenging to accomplish large infrastructure projects. But he said he hopes to get the ball rolling on some projects and hopes he can communicate this to constituents.
This week municipal councillors are expected to vote on a motion to nix a planned months-long staff review of the controversial stadium proposal for Dartmouth's Shannon Park.
Russell said he's does not support tax dollars going into the stadium itself.
"I have not seen a cost-benefit analysis that shows ... enough benefit for the amount of risk that the city would be put under. And so I want to be very, very, very careful if I'm going to spend public dollars," he said.
"If I'm going to spend your tax dollars on the stadium, or on anything else, I want to make sure that we're going to get the right return for that investment."
Ballots all cast electronically
Official results for the byelection will be available Tuesday.
This was the first time voting in the municipality was completely done electronically. Votes were cast by phone or computer.
There were also polling stations for two days of advance polls and on election day. There were computer terminals and election staff at the stations help people with the process.
The seat will be up for grabs again during next October's general election.
MORE TOP STORIES