The preliminary results of the Prince George School District 57 by-election are in, and Milton Mahoney has the most votes with 293, just 12 more than Brian Trotter.
Mahoney said he was ready to get to work right away, but the inauguration won’t happen until later in the month.
“I’m ready to go right now. I’m ready to drop my hat and start working on Monday. 10 months is a very short time to address the issues that are there,” said Mahoney.
The official tally is yet to come and the votes were close, but Mahoney said the other candidates had great platforms.
“I was surprised that I won, and that I didn’t honestly expect it. The other candidates had just as good a platform as I had. They were in some cases better speakers than I was.”
Mahoney said that it was odd that two trustees resigned after the Minister of Education urged the Prince George School Board to act on a special advisor’s report.
“You would think they would want to stick around and resolve that issue. It got me curious, and then when the Minister of Education went on the news and said we were systemic racists, that sent me over the edge. And we are not, as far as I’m concerned.”
“I truly believe that the Minister of Education has caused more racism in our area than we’ve had before. And it was just time for somebody to stand up and put it out to the public.”
Mahoney added that he’s been up since 6 am this morning (Sunday) answering 125 emails so far, and noted that the things people want are transparency, and for him to stick to his platform.
“And a lot of them are bringing up Kelly Road School, that was sort of swept under the rug, and then all of a sudden a name change. And most of the emails I’m getting, they’re not against the name change, it’s the way it was done.”
Mahoney added that he also wants to start limiting the amount of school board meetings that go on behind closed doors and wanted more transparency to the public.
“I do suspect this is going to be a rocky road. There’s a lot of things transpiring that I don’t like. And I’m not here to change the world, all I really want to do is make everyone aware of what’s going on.”