As Cal Huntley made his way from the boardroom to the council chambers of Flin Flon City Hall on Tuesday evening, he certainly didn’t need to ask for directions.
Twice a month for a dozen years, he had made this same brief jaunt, past the administrative offices and cubicles to the dense wooden doors of the municipal government’s spacious meeting room.
The difference this time was that as Huntley approached the half-circle table at the front of the chambers, he eyed the middle chair – his seat for the next four years.
“I’m looking forward to a busy [and] productive four years,” Huntley, now sworn in as Flin Flon’s 20th mayor, later told a smattering of residents and media at his inaugural meeting. “It won’t be without challenges, but I think it’s going to be a very positive four years. In fact, we’re going to work very hard to make it a positive four years.”
A uniter
The statement echoed the message Huntley, 55, put forth during a closely-fought campaign against incumbent George Fontaine. Whereas Fontaine’s approach, well-intentioned as it may have been, created some division, Huntley cast himself as a uniter.
Wearing a dark blazer garnished with a bright red poppy, Huntley was articulate and gracious heading his first meeting as mayor, though he admitted that after four years out of politics, he was a bit procedurally rusty.
The new mayor was the first of the seven council members to take his oath of office, with Chief Administrative Officer Mark Kolt, a copy of the New Testament in hand, doing the honours.
Symbolic of the freshness of his Oct. 22 victory, Huntley’s mayoral nameplate was a piece of paper imprinted by computer: an uppercase CAL HUNTLEY above the first-letter-uppercase title of Mayor.
Huntley’s proper, plastic nameplate will arrive in due course. In the meantime, there are far more pressing issues, such as appointing council’s new subcommittees.
He has an experienced group to work with given council’s five holdovers from last term. His final selections were to be announced at the next council meeting.
In a departure from past practice, Huntley has mused about rearranging his committee lineups rather than preserving them for an entire four-year term.
On Tuesday, he said he hadn’t had the chance to discuss that idea with his councillors, but that if he were to make a switch, it would happen halfway through the term.
“We’re going to talk about it and we’re going to do what works,” Huntley added. “We want to make the best decisions, and I think part of making the best decisions is for everybody to understand finance, engineering, protective services, health and safety, personnel, that kind of a thing.”
Narrow margin
Huntley, a three-term city councillor from 1998 to 2010, comes into office with what is believed to be the narrowest margin of victory of any mayor in Flin Flon history. Just four votes were the difference for him.
Huntley also pulled off the rare feat of defeating an incumbent Flin Flon mayor, just the second time that has happened since 1992.
In his closing remarks Tuesday, Huntley acknowledged the slim nature of his victory.
“It was a very close race. I don’t think the ratings on the radio have been that high for a long time, hey, Joe?” Huntley said, good-naturedly addressing CFAR newsman Joe McCormick.
“It’s good to have two good candidates running for a position of leadership in the community,” Huntley continued, “because you did have two – I believe – two good candidates, and it couldn’t have got any tighter than that.”
Though obviously pleased with the election result, Huntley was disappointed by the low voter turnout of 35 per cent. He said council will work to foster more participation when the 2018 election approaches.
After a few questions from the press and public, the meeting adjourned. And so began a new era in municipal governance.
