Kilpatrick ousts Reimer for mayor’s seat in Redcliff

By Jeremy Appel
Southern Alberta Newspapers
The Town of Redcliff has a new mayor.
Longtime councillor Dwight Kilpatrick defeated incumbent Ernie Reimer in Monday’s municipal election.
Kilpatrick received 591 votes, or 54.2 per cent, to Reimer’s 499 votes, or 45.8 per cent. Turnout was 1,095.
“I’m humbled and grateful for the people who voted for me,” said Kilpatrick. “Next Monday, when we’re sworn in, we start to work.”
He cited infrastructure and sanitation as his two main priorities as mayor.
“We’re all talking economic growth because that’s a wonderful thing to talk about, but when you can’t grow because you’ve reached a limit, you have to fix that limit,” Kilpatrick said.
“That sanitary hurdle is a big one … Even once we figure out a plan going forward, it’s still going to be a matter of how we pay for it. There’s no cheap fix, no matter what.
“I know administration has it on their priority list too, because council as a whole has put it on their priorities, but every day there’s always new things that arise,” he added. “My goal will be hopefully to try to slow the little things down and get some of the big things geared up and running.”
Kilpatrick said he also wants to make progress on collaborations with the City of Medicine Hat.
“That hasn’t even started, so that’s going to be one of the issues in the next four years,” he said.

A bittersweet defeat
Reimer said he’s proud of his accomplishments as mayor but fears they will be rolled back by his successor.
“We had a lot of good things happening for our town and we had some really inspiring initiatives going forward for the next four years,” he said.
“Now I don’t know what’s going to happen with those initiatives with the new mayor, but it doesn’t look good to me, from what I understand from this individual.
“It’s anybody’s guess what’s going to happen. Are we going to go backwards now? Because I was a forward-thinking mayor all these years.”

Redcliff council election results:
COUNCILLOR
COCKLE, Shawna 643
CROZIER, Catherine 648
CZEMBER, Chris 721
GAETAN, J.D. 389
LEIPERT, Larry 668
SOLBERG, Eric 733
STEINKE, Jim J 703