Tara Veer has been elected as the City’s new mayor and she’s eager to get to work.
Unofficial results show that she received 9,400 votes. Cindy Jefferies came in second with 7,971 votes, followed by Dennis Trepanier with 1,513 votes, William Horn with 951 votes and Chad Mason with 409 votes.
“We ran a great campaign from start to finish. I was so honoured to have so many volunteers – this victory really belongs to them. They did it all – I had such great support on the ground,” said Veer. “Thank you so much to the people of Red Deer who have been so very good to me. I’m honoured to serve Red Deer in this capacity. It’s going to be a great four years and the best is yet to come.”
She said being elected as mayor is “absolutely surreal.”
“I’ve had a love of politics since I was really small and over the course of years I’ve had opportunities to work in the federal government for the federal MP. Red Deer took a chance on me at a very young age to become a councillor and here they’ve trusted me with the role of mayor,” she said. “It’s been a long race and this has been a long time coming.”
Veer said moving forward the goal is to work with council and work together to bring unity in the community.
“I’m looking forward to meeting with council, hopefully sometime this week and taking a look at the public agenda and going over the issues that all of us committed to and moving forward on the mandate the people of Red Deer have given us. We have had some division on issues in the community and I’m looking forward to making progress on issues that matter the most to Red Deerians.”
Meanwhile, Jefferies said she ran the best campaign possible “but it wasn’t enough.”
“It was an amazing experience for me and I’m thankful for the opportunity to have served the community and now we’ll wait to see what happens.”
She added she plans to take a few weeks or even a few months to regroup and to see what is next.
“I haven’t thought much about what I’m going to do. I thought I would cross that bridge if I got there,” said Jefferies, who has spent the last 18 years in politics.
She said moving forward, it will be important for council to begin building relationships and to trust and respect one another.
“There is a lot of change on council and hopefully they continue to move forward and keep making a great City for us.”
efawcett@reddeerexpress.com
