Markham election night live 2018: Scarpitti hammers opponents

Find out who won, read what winners, candidates are saying

Yorkregion.com
October 23, 2018
Tim Kelly

For the 10th election, going back to 1985, Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti knew what it felt like to be a winner on Monday night.

This was Scarpitti’s fourth straight win as mayor and past election signs showing his numerous runs for office in Markham dotted the stage as the 58-year-old veteran municipal politician enjoyed the evening.

He won 55,523 of the ballots cast to 11,068 for his closest rival, Steven Chen. In a distant third place with 3,379 votes was Abdul Rahman Malik, while Jawed Syed was fourth with 2,294 and Shan Hua Lu was fifth with 1,835 votes.

“I never get tired of this job, I love the city of Markham, I’m a big fan of everything in the City of Markham,” Scarpitti told a crowd of about 200 fans at a victory party at Le Parc banquet hall in Thornhill.

“We are the most diverse city in all of Canada. People have come here from every corner of the world, so many have come here to create a better life for themselves and for their families. We are a collection of that diversity, a collection of those hopes and dreams and that’s what makes Markham, a wonderful place,” Scarpitti said.

Mayor since 2006, Scarpitti said he was proud of Markham’s 1.68 per cent average tax increase over the past decade, “the lowest in the GTA.” He also spoke proudly of the three community centres built over the past decade: the Cornell Community Centre, the Aanin Community Centre and the Pan Am Centre.

The battle to sit on regional council turned out to be an interesting game of who would be left out when the voting stops from among the four incumbents and Don Hamilton, the former Ward 3 councillor attempting to move to regional council.

Hamilton led the way with 31,952 votes and now becomes deputy mayor. Jack Heath came in second place with 31,598 votes, Joe Li was third with 29,852, Jim Jones fourth with 29,037 votes and Nirmala Armstrong was fifth and thus lost her council seat with 25,212 votes. The other seven candidates were further back with Jeffrey Lee leading the way with 15,565 votes, Ray Lai seventh with 15,296, Niran Jeyanesan next at 14,984, Tammy Mok with 13,773 votes, Jeff Leung with 12,502 votes, Peter Pavlovic with 11,024 and Aaron Madar at 5,954.

The eight-candidate Ward 1 race was won by Keith Irish with 2,266 votes. He defeated former Markham councillor Howard Shore who fell short in his comeback with 1,602 votes. Barry Nelson was third with 1,506 while Ricardo Mashregi came fourth with 1,179 votes. Peter Wong was fifth with 670 votes, Hilary Neubauer sixth with 616, Caryn Bergmann seventh with 602 and Jasmine Kang last with 447.

Incumbent Alan Ho reclaimed Ward 2 winning with 3,815 votes. Larry Lau was the runnerup with 1,523, Charles Jiang came third with 1,379 votes, Tammy Armes was fourth with 582 votes, while Tom Brindley came fifth with 508 votes and Bola Otaraki was last with 299.

Reid McAlpine claimed Don Hamilton’s vacant ward 3 seat with 3,287 votes while Jennifer Carrie Wan was second with 2,060 votes and Ed Law came third with 1,718 votes. Shanta Sundarason was fourth with 1,132 votes and Soraya Mangal brought up the rear with 299 votes.

Incumbent Karen Rea easily reclaimed Ward 4 with 8,190 votes. Ivy Lee was a distant second with 1,761 votes. Third place went to Shaarmina A. Rodrigo with 372 votes and Viradhi Sansanwal was last with 194.

A wide open Ward 5 race saw 13 candidates evenly split the vote. But Andrew Keyes was able to come out on top winning with just 1,266 votes. Compass Chung was second with 920 votes.

Third went to Sri Sivasubramaniam with 734 votes. The next 10 places are as follows: Fred K. Wong, 687; Tommy Chan, 662; Marlene Mogado, 646; Mo Shakir, 603; Grace Woo, 569; Jeremiah Vijeyaratnam, 525; Scott Au, 319; Sean O’Leary, 277; Rajeev Narang, 132; and Ashok Bangia, 107.

Incumbent Amandu Yeung Collucci was able to reclaim her Ward 6 seat winning 3,125 votes. Shawn Wang was second with 2,357 votes. Gin Siow came third with 1,074 votes. Fourth place went to Victor Chan with 820 votes while Arif Mahmood was last with 280 votes.

Ward 7 was a wide open race but incumbent Khalid Usman won an interesting race after he was appointed to take the place of Logan Kanapathi when the latter won a seat in the provincial legislature last June. Usman ended up defeating Kanapathi’s daughter, Kethika Logan Kanapathi, who ran to try to take her father’s old council seat.

Usman earned 3,308 votes to win, with Kanapathi finishing second with 2,635 votes. The seven other candidates in order were: Sundy Huang, 2,079; Killi Chelliah, 1,961; Malar Varatharaja, 1,587; Sothy Sella, 481; Johnson Irimpan, 350; and Elaguppillai (Mike) Srinathan, 236.

Newcomer Issa Lee grabbed Ward 8, made vacant when longtime councillor Alex Chiu (still on the ballot) decided he wasn’t going to serve an 11th straight term.

Lee earned 4,616 votes to win the seat. Joseph (Mohan) Remisiar came second with 2,599 votes. Third place went to Benson Lau with 1,259 votes while fourth was claimed by Howard Shen with 1,124 votes. And Chiu still picked up 893 votes though he had dropped out weeks ago.

The results are unofficial.