Lynn Dollin has been re-elected as mayor of Innisfil defeating Dan Davidson, who served last term as the town's deputy mayor.
Dollin received 7,949 votes and Davidson, 3,332.
Having served as a member of council since 1994, Dollin will now enter her second term as mayor after initially being elected in 2018.
“I want to really thank all of the people who supported me, it was a bit of a rough campaign this year,” Dollin said in her victory speech. “I was down for a bit with COVID and then the issues over the last couple weeks took the wind out of my sails, you guys stepped up big-time.”
Dollin was of course referring to the devastating loss of South Simcoe police officers Devon Northrup and Morgan Russell who were killed in the line of duty on Oct. 11.
Speaking with InnisfilToday, Dollin is ready to follow through on her promises to work towards a better Innisfil.
“I would say to the community, to those who supported me, thank you for your support both through my last term and giving me that mandate to go forward for another four years," she said. "For those who didn’t support me, I ask you to please reach out to me. I need to learn what I did to disappoint you and see what we can do better.”
Now set to begin her second term as mayor of Innisfil, Dollin is excited to get back to business.
“The hardest thing about being the mayor and running for mayor is you have to do both jobs,” she said. “That was difficult, so I’m very excited and very energized and ready to go.”
When asked about the low voter turnout, Dollin said it’s an issue that needs more attention going forward.
“We have to do what we can to elevate local government and make people understand how important it is to them so we can get voter turnout up in the future,” she explained.
Campaigning on a platform that focuses on recovery, community safety, smart development and growth, Dollin previously told InnisfilToday that with the projected population boom over the next few decades, long-term planning starts now.
“All the planning for the growth we know is coming is critical as far as making sure our community is ready. We started the Innisfil DMZ, and our economic development strategies have been working really well,” she said. “We need to focus on financial sustainability. We also need to move forward on key initiatives from the community.
“We know traffic calming is huge and we’re working hard on that. We also want to make us a place as opposed to a space by getting services closer to home, like a hospital and a GO Train station. There’s lots of pieces in motion and we need to move the yard stick on those major projects.”
Seeking re-election was an easy choice for Dollin, who previously told InnisfilToday, “I want to see what we can accomplish in four years without one hand tied behind our back. For half the term we had the pandemic, and I’m very proud of our record and our community and how we dealt with the challenges of the pandemic with our resiliency, but at the same time I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing what four years without a global pandemic would bring Innisfil.”
