By Bryan Eneas

Woytowich edges out Hordyski for La Ronge’s top spot

Oct 28, 2016 | 6:00 AM

The race for the mayor’s seat in La Ronge ended up being decided by less than 10 votes.

The two candidates sat side-by-side into the early hours of Wednesday morning as election officials counted the ballots until 4 a.m. Ron Woytowich beat out former mayor Joe Hordyski by a margin of seven votes.

Woytowich is the executive director of the Kikinahk friendship center in La Ronge. He said being friends with Hordyski was the worst part of the tight race.

“Between the two of us we’re just sitting beside each other, and we see every ballot and they’re naming it off. There were 600 and some ballots so the whole thing took a couple hours,” Woytowich said. “For the most of the time we were no more than 7 to 10 votes apart.”

At one point, Woytowich said he held a 33 vote lead, which diminished quickly as the ballots continued to be counted. He said the outcome goes to show how split the community of La Ronge was on who should be their mayor.

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Woytowich said there are a number of issues that candidates for council brought up during the debate and other discussions which are going to be addressed.

“(I) don’t necessarily know whether they can be fixed immediately, or even if they can be fixed. But we know there is going to be some things on the agenda very quickly,” Woytowich said.

Woytowich ran on a platform of better community interaction and communication (http://panow.com/article/596368/new-sense-community-priority-la-ronge-mayoral-candidate) between the Lac La Ronge Indian Band, and Air Ronge.

Town council will be sworn in on November 9, when Woytowich will take office.

–With files from Nigel Maxwell

Bryan.Eneas@panow.com

On Twitter: @Bryaneneas