From spectator to mayor: resident wins nail-biter in small township

As a private citizen, Brant Burrow had a nearly-perfect attendance record at council meetings in the Township of Elizabethtown-Kitley.

Now he's set to return for another term, only this time as mayor. 

Burrow won in a nail-biter Monday, winning the race for mayor in the rural community that surrounds Brockville, Ont., by just six votes.

Prior to the win, Burrow had never served on council, but he had served as the chair of the township's waste management committee until the council of the day folded it.

But his interest in municipal politics remained, and he said he decided to stick with it over the next six years.

"The more I stuck with it the more interested I became in stuff beyond waste management and I started to become a student of most of the township's by-laws, their strategic planning process, the budget process [and] the municipal act. I can't really say exactly what motivated me, but I'm glad I put in the time," Burrow told CBC Radio's All In A Day.

"I wish I could say that this was part of a long-term plan … That six years ago I decided 'Oh, one day I want to run for mayor, so I need to go to school first,' but truthfully I didn't have that much foresight," he said.

On election night, Burrow didn't believe he had won as he watched results roll in at the local library with other council candidates.

"I was looking at my number and saying 'huh, 40 votes off, well that was pretty close for first time. Oh well. I guess I'll be congratulating Dan [Downey]," Burrow said, referring to one of his two opponents, both of whom were sitting councillors in the last term.

Thinking he'd lost, Burrow left the library. "It wasn't until sometime later that my cell phone started to light up with messages of congratulations and it took me a minute or two to figure out what was going on."

Expects public scrutiny

Part of Burrow's platform was to re-engage the public and build bridges with residents.

He's been running a newsletter to keep residents informed about the goings-on at town council and what he felt were inconsistencies with how rules and regulations were being applied.

While he won't be continuing his newsletter, he hopes someone else will, to keep him accountable and to ensure he doesn't fall into a rut of providing dissatisfactory answers now that he's on the other side of the table.

"All I'm going to need is a gentle prod by somebody writing some sort of a newsletter or coming up to me and saying 'you realize you just made the mistake you just used to complain about'," he said.

"I'll only need that once."

He also plans to bring curbside waste pickup to the township. Residents currently have to take their garbage to the dump. Because the 2019 budget is already in the works, he said waste pickup won't likely make it on the agenda until 2020.

Since the race is so close, there is a possibility one of his opponents could request a recount. Applicants have 15 days to request a judicial recount, according to Ontario's Municipal Elections Act.