Frank Scarpitti says he campaigned and reclaimed the Markham mayor’s chair on a winning record.
On Monday night, the Town of Markham re-elected him as its mayor.
Away from the Markham Civic Centre, where screens continuously posted updated results from the election, at the Le Parc Conference and Banquet Centre, Scarpitti, 50, celebrated the beginning of his third term as mayor. There, friends and family lined up to congratulate Scarpitti on winning Markham’s mayoral race with 85 per cent of cast ballots.
Scarpitti garnered 54,660 votes, while his nearest rival Stephen Kotyck accumulated 5,566 votes and Partap Dua polled 3,909. Scarpitti credited his previous term in office.
“From the moment I registered as a candidate back in June, I indicated that I felt this was… truly the most productive term of council in our history,” Scarpitti said.
Scarpitti suggested that these achievements likely played a larger part in his victory than his 22 years’ experience on council.
“I think certainly experience is part of it,” he said, “but the main part is really what we ended up picking as our campaign theme, which was ‘a winning record.”
Scarpitti pointed to Markham’s zero per cent tax increase in 2009 and 2010 as a reason for his success. Nevertheless, Scarpitti admits that there’s still work to be done working with a new council.
“There have been some changes tonight,” he said. “We have four new people that will come onto a 13-member council. For me, I think one of the first things is to make sure that we’re going to work well together as a team.”
Markham’s new mayor, Frank Scarpitti, seems like an intelligent individual with great prospects for the city. He is a person that engages actively with the public and keeps an open perspective on political and social issues. He was re-elected for another term in office (by an astounding majority vote) and we hope that he will continue being proactive and bring new qualities in the effort of making Markham an even better city.