The race for Mayor of the Village of Point Edward came to a close on Monday evening.
Former Deputy Mayor Greg Grimes has been elected to the position with 510 votes, only 16 votes ahead of former councillor Paul Burgess who received 494 votes.
"I'm humbled. The results are closer than I anticipated, but it is a win, and I'm very happy to be elected mayor of the village. We both ran great campaigns, and the people elected me as their mayor, and I look forward to serving," said Mayor-elect Greg Grimes. "I'm excited. We've got a lot going on in the village coming up in the near future. Some potential developments, and I look forward to being part of that, and being part of our 150th anniversary in 2028."
Grimes was first elected as a councillor in 2018; Burgess was first elected to council in 2014.
"I just want to thank everyone that did support me. I want to thank my family. My wife will be happy now that it's over, because I won't be able to talk about this anymore. But no, I want to thank everybody in the village that did vote for me, and I'm looking forward to the next four years. It's going to be great."
Grimes noted the effort that went into his campaign.
"A lot of hard work, a lot of going around the community. We're fortunate in Point Edward. We're a small community, so you can do the whole village door to door, and I did that. I went twice around the whole village talking to people. I think I ran a very active social media campaign on Facebook. I was the only candidate that had their own website in the village, so I think that helped me. I put my name out there and what I stood for."
A total of 1,026 votes were cast for mayor, with 22 abstaining.
Four councillors were elected out of 11 who were in the running, including former Mayor Bev Hand.
The village's new council members include Paul Churchill, Doug Booth, Kevin Devine, and Louie Mele.
A total of 1,026 ballots were cast for council, with eight abstaining.
