Clive Tolley elected the new mayor of Moose Jaw

He’s a former city councillor, a professional arbitrator and mediator and now he will soon be adding mayor to his resume.

Clive Tolley has unofficially been elected the mayor of Moose Jaw in a byelection on Wednesday night. Barring a challenge, the results should be certified by Friday morning.

It was a tight race all the way through, with Sam Morrison taking an early lead after the first polling station reported, but as the night went on, more and more votes were swinging Tolley’s way.

After four polling stations were reporting, Tolley and Morrison were tied with 774 votes each followed by Crystal Froese with 761 votes.

The final poll, which happens to be the advance poll votes, put Tolley on top with 1,290 votes, or 21.5 per cent of the vote. Froese was second with 1,249 votes and Morrison third with 1,227 votes.

“I feel very, very fortunate to have won,” Tolley said after the byelection.

“There are some good people that ran in this contest against me and I feel very fortunate to have beaten them and being elected mayor of Moose Jaw because it is something I wanted to do. I love my city and I’m passionate about it.”

Tolley said his first order of business will be to talk to city administration to see what the immediate needs are for the city. As well, he has a few ideas of his own.

“I’ve said right throughout the campaign, I think that the revitalization of River Street is our No. 1 agenda right now from a community redevelopment aspect. So I want to meet with the people that own the land down on River Street and find out what plans they have,” he said.

This isn’t Tolley’s first go-around in council chambers. He is a former city councillor who last sat on council nearly 32 years ago.

He did recognize that a lot has changed since then.

“My passion for the community didn’t diminish. It’s increased, if anything, and a lot of people came up to me and said, ‘We need you. We want you to be part of this. We think we need your leadership,’ so I let my name stand,” Tolley said.

“I’ve been elected and I’m going to do my best to see this through. I want to restore the faith that people have in City Hall and try and respond to their needs.”

Tolley will likely be thrown right into the fire. City council is slated to meet on Monday at 5:30 p.m., when it’s expected that he will be sworn in as the new mayor.

The short turnaround was something that didn’t bother him.

“I’m familiar with the process. I’m comfortable in the chair and I also run an awful lot of meetings as a mediator and arbitrator, so this is not something new or different for me,” Tolley said.

Unofficially, 5,999 voted in the byelection, about 22.5 per cent of eligible voters.

Fraser Tolmie won the mayor’s seat during the municipal election in 2020, but the following August, he won the Conservative nomination — and eventually the seat — for the federal Moose Jaw-Lake Centre-Lanigan riding and stepped away from the mayoral post.