Devlin elected mayor of East St. Paul

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This article was published 28/10/2022 (1141 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Carla Devlin has been elected mayor of East St. Paul.

“It’s pretty exciting,” Devlin said.

Devlin, a contractor and president of Carrington Custom Homes, was elected Ward 1 councillor in 2018. Her opponent in this year’s municipal election was former East St. Paul two-term mayor and councillor Lawrence Morris, who lost his bid for re-election in 2014 to Shelley Hart, who served two terms before deciding not to run this year.

Devlin won a final total of 2,038 votes, while Morris registered 1,374.

“It was a long road, one that I had to persevere through,” Devlin said. “I stuck to the merits of my plan and campaign, focused on that, and what I can bring to the role rather than tactics of those seeking to spread misinformation.”

While Hart was acclaimed in 2018, this year’s election proved much more divisive. In the weeks leading up to the election, community Facebook pages featured plenty of back and forth from supporters of both candidates, including a number of allegations of election sign tampering and removal.

“This was the first time I personally put myself on social media, and I can tell you that social media does something to an individual,” Devlin said. “I’ve never experienced cyberbullying until now and I feel there is a need to spread awareness and talk about this. I had a hard time with it. I can’t imagine being a child or teenager or young adult and being faced with bullying and slander or any information being spread on social media. We need to be role models.”

A number of residents posted allegations that Devlin, as a home-builder, was in conflict of interest as a councillor. But Devlin denied those allegations across the board.

“I believe in East St. Paul’s bylaws,” she said. “Any time you have an application in front of you, you need to evaluate yourself in your community. You make a decision to recuse yourself or not. I don’t see any conflict of interest arising. I don’t own any land to be developed or subdivided in East St. Paul. If you have a variance in front of you, if you’re not part of that application, then you need to make a decision. I handle my position well, and I always engage my lawyer if I have any questions to ensure that I am not putting myself in a position that could render myself in conflict.”

Going forward, Devlin said she is focused on the issues she campaigned on, which include completing construction of a new waste water plant and improving recreational opportunities for residents.

“East St. Paul has to deal with our infrastructure, improve it, and build that waste-water plant so we can look forward to that next 40, 50 years,” she said. “I believe in providing diversity to our community, we need to be an age in place community, so we need diversity in housing for them. But with a moratorium on development, for the next 3 years we won’t be seeing any new development, we’ll just be focused on getting our infrastructure in order so we can be a progressive community again.”

East St. Paul municipal council will include new Ward 1 councillor Brian Imhoff, along with re-elected incumbents Orest Horechko (Ward 2), Brian Duval (Ward 3), and Charles Posthumus (Ward 4).