Rory Ring, the Sault's blustering, bareknuckle mayoral challenger, got his chimes rung tonight by incumbent Christian Provenzano.
And one of the first questions posed by reporters to the re-elected Provenzano was whether he'll be able to work constructively with the Chamber of Commerce when Ring returns there as chief executive officer.
Both Provenzano and Ring appeared conciliatory tonight, after a campaign in which Ring's war room relentlessly attacked both the mayor and journalists who challenged his often-contested facts or didn't promptly publish Ring's every public pronouncement.
"Look, I want to be clear about something," the mayor said. "I don't bear any animosity. Throughout the campaign, I think if you look at the communications that my campaign put out, they were fact-based. They weren't personal."
"I'm elected and it's my job to work with the community at large. I have a great relationship with the [Chamber of Commerce] chair. Carlo [Spadafora] is a long-term friend of mine."
"I'm a businessperson in the community and a fee-paying member of the Chamber of Commerce. I absolutely have no concern about my ability to interact with the Chamber of Commerce. I will happily work with Carlo and support the Chamber whenever they need my support," Provenzano said.
Provenzano gathered three votes for every one collected by Ring.
Provenzano got 15,300 votes, compared to Ring's 5,142.
Ted Johnston received 1,177 votes.
Kemal Martinovic scaped together 190.
Provenzano said he did some door-to-door stumping during this campaign, but not as much as earlier political campaigns.
"I have a wife and two little ones. I work a lot and I work long and I didn't have the time to go door-to-door as much as I used to. I went maybe 25 to 30 per cent of what I usually do."
"The result is overwhelming. I'm really gratified by it. I think it speaks to the campaign that I ran. And I think it speaks to the work that I did over the last four years."
"I want the community to know that all they've done here is motivate me to keep on doing my best for them."
Provenzano repeated his earlier statement that this will be his last term of office.
"The reason why it's my last campaign as mayor is that I actually personally believe in term limits. If you look at term limits you'll realize that you can't lawfully implement a term limit in Canada. It's not constitutional."
"But if you believe in something, you should follow it. I believe that renewal is good for a community. I don't think people should sit in that chair for a prolonged period of time. So I'm holding myself to my own belief."
"Campaigns are campaigns. You want to run against a campaign that is honest and factual and you have a good public debate. But you don't get to choose the campaign that you're running against. So you've just got to do your best and you've just got to try to hold yourself to your standard and present yourself in a way that you think is fair and reasonable and we did that."
"I just want to promise the community that, as hard as I worked the last four years, I'll double up that effort and try and work as hard over the next four years," Provenzano said. "We're going to do some great things and we're going to make sure our community goes in the right direction."
