Third of a three-part series.
The 2018 municipal election campaign in Windsor-Essex reaches its end Monday.
Voters are being asked to choose mayors, deputy mayors, councillors and school board trustees to represent them over the next four years.
BlackburnNewsWindsor.com first presented a complete summary of all of the Windsor-Essex candidates in today's election when nominations were closed in July. This three-part series has been updated by the newsroom and has been presented all weekend.
Part one on Saturday focused on the school board trustee candidates. Part two, re-published Sunday, outlined the candidates in Lakeshore, LaSalle, Leamington, Pelee Island and Tecumseh. This final installment will examine the candidates in the city of Windsor, and then Amherstburg, Essex and Kingsville.
All candidates listed here have been certified and listed on their municipalities' official websites as of Friday afternoon, meaning they all will appear on the ballot.
The entire BlackburnNews.com team will provide extensive coverage of the election results online and on social media Monday evening. Updates will also be provided on-air on MIX 96.7FM and Windsor’s Country 95.9 beginning when the polls close at 8 p.m and hourly until all major races have been called.
Windsor
Incumbent mayor, lawyer Drew Dilkens, is up for a second term. His biggest challenger is Matt Marchand, previously an adviser for former Windsor mayor Mike Hurst and the former head of the Windsor-Essex Regional Chamber of Commerce. Also running for mayor are businessmen Tom Hensel and Ernie (The Baconman) Lamont, along with retired farmer Frank Dyck.
On city council, all incumbents except the retiring Bill Marra want to keep their seats for another four-year term.
Ward 1's Fred Francis is running against Matt Ford, Krysta Glovasky-Ridsdale, Wiquar Husain and Darcie Renaud.
Fabio Costante, community activist and Catholic school board trustee, is challenging John Elliott in Ward 2.
In Ward 3, Rino Bortolin filed his papers this week. He is facing two opponents, Halmi Charif and Steve Palenkas.
Chris Holt has one challenger in Ward 4, Janice Campbell.
Ward 5's Ed Sleiman is facing off against five challengers. They are Adam Castle, Lillian Kruzsely, Joe Lucier, Martin A. Utrosa and Joey Wright. However, Utrosa announced Thursday that he has suspended his own campaign and is endorsing Wright. On Friday, Lucier announced he too, was dropping out and endorsing Wright.
Council veteran Jo-Anne Gignac wants another four years in Ward 6 and will be the longest-serving active councillor if re-elected. She's being challenged by Jeff Denomme, Joshua Jacquot and Terry Yaldo.
Angelo Marignani, who lost four years ago to Irek Kusmierczyk in Ward 7, is up again. Two other candidates are also in the running, Albert Saba and Catholic school board chairperson Barbara Holland.
Eight people have filed to fill the Ward 8 seat being vacated by Marra. They are Giovanni Abati, Gemma Grey-Hall, Patti Hayes, Gary Kaschak, Greg Lemay, Kathryn MacDonell, former federal Liberal MP candidate David Sundin, and Lisa Valente.
In Ward 9, incumbent Hilary Payne is facing Alex Aggarwal and Windsor-West MP Brian Masse's longtime aide Kieran McKenzie.
Paul Borrelli has the most opponents for his Ward 10 seat. Challenging him are Jim Morrison, who narrowly lost to Borrelli four years ago. Also on the ballot are Olivia Ashak, Wally Chafchak, Mohamed Chams, Mark Masanovich, Michael Patterson and Sadiq Pirani.
Amherstburg
Mayor Aldo DiCarlo has already declared for a second four-year term. His opponent will be Glenn Swinton.
Deputy Mayor Bart DiPasquale is not running again. In the race to succeed him, current councillors Leo Meloche, Rick Fryer and Diane Pouget seek a promotion. Also running is Bob Rozankovic, the chairman of the Amherstburg Police Services Board.
Town council will look radically different. Incumbent councillor Joan Courtney is not seeking re-election, leaving incumbent Jason Lavigne as the only current councillor on Monday's ballot. Thirteen challengers have filed to run for four open seats. They are Frank Cleminson, Peter Courtney, Pauline Gemmell, Libby Keenan, Lena Lazanja, Donald McArthur, John Menna, Gregory Moore, Michael Prue, Marc Renaud, Patricia Simone, Ron Sutherland and Lori Wightman.
Essex
There will be some changes on Essex Town Council.
A new mayor will occupy the chair being vacated by the retiring Ron McDermott, who had served in that position since 2003.
Four candidates wish to succeed him. Two of them are current town councillors, Larry Snively (who briefly served as mayor in 2002 after the death of Joan Flood), and Ron Rogers. The other two running for mayor are Rob Shepley and Katie McGuire-Blais.
Deputy Mayor Richard Meloche is running for another term, facing Phil Pocock. In this election, the deputy mayor is being voted on at-large, rather than chosen among the elected councillors.
For Ward 1 councillor, incumbent Randy Voakes is running for one of the two available seats. Also running are Morley Bowman, Joe Garon, Fred Groves and Tom Holland.
Terry Brockman, Kim Verbeek and Mark Williams are vying for the single Ward 2 position.
In Ward 3, Ward 1 incumbent Steve Bjorkman is running for two open seats. The other will be filled with either Rodney Hammond or retired journalist Chris Vander Doelen.
Incumbent Sherry Bondy is seeking to keep her Ward 4 seat, challenged by Paul Innes.
Kingsville
Mayor Nelson Santos is acclaimed. Deputy Mayor Gord Queen is also unopposed.
There will be new faces on town council. Suzanne Coghill is not running again, nor is John Dreidger, who was elected to council last September in a by-election.
Incumbents Tony Gaffan, Thomas Neufeld and Larry Patterson are up for re-election. There are 12 challengers. They are former BlackburnNews.com journalist Kevin Black, along with Gloria Cavenago, Kim DeYong, Kim Gilliland, Corey Gosselin, Jackie Kerr, Michael Laba, John Lein, Laura Lucier, Ted Mastronardi, Paul Lariviere and Barry Wilson.