The village of St. Pierre-Jolys Mayor and councillors have all been acclaimed.
Raymond Maynard, mayor of the village, was first elected to council in 2002, then he took a break the following term and has since rejoined for the last three.
After 16 years on council and now to be acclaimed again, Maynard says he hopes it’s because the residents of St Pierre are happy with the job he has been doing.
“If they're happy with the job that we've done in the past, the work that we've done regarding the sewer system and where we've indicated that we will go, well, if that's the reason we are all in for another term, then it makes me feel good.”
Having had a by-election just over a year ago, in June 2021, Maynard says, “the nice part about having only two new Councilors is that, for most of the projects, everybody knows what's happening, so there's not going to be too much time spent on bringing people up to speed on where we're at and what we're doing. So that'll be a nice part.”
Although the residents of St. Pierre may not be going to the polls in a few weeks, they've made plenty of trips in the past 3 years.
Maynard gives a run-down of the recent by-elections in the village.
Francine Roy resigned from council to move to Winnipeg in November 2018.
Justin Kehler was elected to replace Roy, in a by-election in February 2019. This was the first time in 13 years that St Pierre residents had gone to the polls.
Another Council seat was left vacant when Paul Gauthier moved out of the community in December 2020.
Then Raymond Gagne lost his battle with cancer in May 2021, now leaving two empty seats on the 5-person village council (1 Mayor and 4 Councillors)
So, St. Pierre-Jolys held a by-election on June 17, 2021, when Michel Forest and Maureen Sicotte were acclaimed.
And now with two individuals from the current council stepping down and two candidates stepping forward, all the St Pierre council seats are once again filled.
Maynard speaks to the two outgoing councillors. “I'm really gonna miss them. One of them was my Deputy Mayor, Justin Kehler. He was really good at a lot of stuff and he was on the Finance Committee. He's done a great job on all the other committees. The other councillor to leave is Paule Péloquin. She's done great strides on all the committees she's been on. She's an amazing person with a ton of knowledge that is going to be very, very missed on our council.”
As to the acclamations after the October 2022 Municipal council elections, Maynard says, “Now we’ve two new councillors coming in. Mark Proulux, is a retired fire fireman from Winnipeg who has moved back to St Pierre, which is nice. I think he's going to be great for the community. He knows a lot about the community. He knows a lot of the people here, so I think that'll be awesome.”
Maynard then goes on to talk about the other councillor added to their table. “Suzanne Jolicoeur. She was in the education industry and brings a lot of knowledge to council. I will need help regarding administration personnel and stuff like that and I think she'll be great for that.”
When asked about what the residents can look forward to this new council to be working on over the next four years, Maynard says, “We’ve got a new development starting up and a shovel will be going in the ground in October, it will be quite a sizable development being built in few phases. Then we’ve got street paving that will be done next year, although we had hoped to finish it this year. But stuff happens where, as per usual, you’ve got money put aside to do something and then something else breaks and you got to move money around to make sure the priorities get taken care of. So hopefully we'll be able to pave those streets next year. Then we are continuing our street drainage system project. And just to keep growing, that's really the main thing. We are trying to attract more commercial businesses to our community and to establish themselves here.”
Maynard says, they recently received a government grant for approximately $134,000 which will help with the drainage project which began a couple of years ago. He says the project was always intended to be completed in a couple of phases.
Mayor Maynard says he is looking forward to the next four years. “I think it'll be fun. I've got some projects that I personally would like to put through, but it's going to take some research first.”
Speaking to the residents of St Pierre he says, “I would like to encourage the residents of St Pierre to go to our website and subscribe to our monthly newsletter, where we, on a monthly basis write about what's going on and what we're planning on doing. It just keeps everyone informed on what we're doing.”
“Also, I want to congratulate all the other Councillors and Mayors and Reeves in the RM’s that have been acclaimed.”