Ward One

The second race I was interested in was the one for my own Counsellor. I had met Andrew Knack through my community league and knew how badly he wanted the seat on counsel. A race against the incumbent would have been very interesting but was not to be when Linda Sloan decided to retire. Only one other candidate had declared before Sloan dropped out but four more would announce their intentions before nomination day. Since Knack started early in his quest to dethrone Sloan, all predictions were that he had too much of a head start. He certainly had his picture up on bus benches, billboards, and lawn signs well ahead of anyone else.

Fortunately for him, Knack swept to power with nearly 45% of the vote and more votes than the next two challengers combined. Knack captured over 60% of the vote in Meadowlark, where he is (was?) community league president, and in Lewis Estates. He only lost one polling station, the mostly industrial area in the northwest part of his ward. In my conversations with Knack, I found him to be a big supporter of the proposed Southeast to West LRT line. With the ward broken into just 17 polling stations, the results are too course to tell if there's any relation between Knack's support and the proposed LRT route. I don't know what explains his popularity in Lewis Estates but that would be the location of the LRT terminus.