TRURO – Bill Mills is thrilled to not be going anywhere anytime soon.
Mills, 55, was re-elected as mayor of the Town of Truro on Saturday after a close race with opponent Keltie Jones. Mills received 2,228 votes; Jones earned 1,934.
“I’m happy. I think my longevity as mayor (contributed)” to the re-election said Mills, who waited for the results in the mayor’s office on Saturday night. Mills has been mayor for 15 years and has 25 years experience on town council, one of them in Amherst.
He admitted Jones, an associate vice-president for students at the Dalhousie University Faculty of Agriculture (the former NSAC), did very well.
“She did extremely well especially since she was running for a municipal (seat) for the first time and skipping councillor and going straight for mayor,” Mills said.
“She did a good campaign. She said she was going for my throat and she wasn’t kidding.”
Mills said he was a little nervous to hear the results and kept busy throughout Saturday as the countdown to the results ticked by.
“You always have doubts,” Mills said, adding he believes electronic voting had a big say in the decision.
“(Keltie) got a lot of younger votes, I suspect.”
Looking toward the new council term, Mills said there are a few priorities he hopes to deal with immediately.
“We owe it to the citizens to look at the flooding situation. We need to put money aside to look at how to improve water runoff,” he said.
Mills also wants to push for solar heating in Truro. He recently met with business people in Austria who have a very successful solar heating system in place.
“We want new revenue and I’m hoping council will support this. It would bring in 75 jobs and be good in the old landfill and expanded business park.”
Jones, 46, although disappointed with the results, was proud of her efforts.
“There is disappointment because I think I would’ve made an excellent mayor,” Jones told the Truro Daily News.
“I didn’t know what to expect. Some people told me there was no way I could ever come close … and I proved them wrong. I think there’s quite a contingent of people who are pleased with Mr. Mills but a lot who are not.”
Jones was pleased with the turnout, adding that was one goal she had: to see more people vote.
As for the future, Jones said she’s undecided if she will run again. She said many people are “insisting” she try again.
“If there are things I’m still not happy with I’ll think about it.”
Election results are not official until Tuesday. Truro town council will swear in its representatives during the next town council meeting, which is scheduled for Nov. 5.
Mr . Outsider , I'll fill you in on what's been going on in the town . Over the last 4 years the town has been wrecked by spending sprees , high taxes , business closures , and shutting down our lower cost recreational facilities while spending 50 Million Dollars on a Civic Center that no one can afford to use , and 20 Million Dollars on the Downtown Master Plan .. Keltie Jones and Kenda Maclellan want to continue the spending sprees , spending millions more on their transit system . They work with the Living Earth Council , which is a special interest group of global warming fanatics that don't represent the people but have been meeting secretly with the town government . This agenda includes forced recycling , spending millions on a public transit system , and intentionally making the town inconvenient for cars to promote their public transit . Their proposals include parking controls to make it inconvenient , and removal of parking altogether in the downtown core so people will use the transit . This would be the nail in the coffin for the downtown core , higher taxes and no parking . The high taxes are also literally taking food off peoples tables .They represent the well off middle class that live in a dream world and show no regard for the economic hardship others are facing , they just want to spend millions to validate themselves because they believe carbon dioxide that plants breathe is somehow a deadly poison . These are the "trendies" , that are into the "cause of the day" , or as I like to call them "Bandwagon Bullies" . Kenda is also involved with promoting the drugging of children through the mental health system . God help us !