Prince Albert elects new mayor after 12 years under Greg Dionne

The City of Prince Albert is pictured March 18, 2020.

After 12 years under Greg Dionne, the City of Prince Albert has a new mayor.

On Wednesday night, the incumbent Dionne lost to Bill Powalinsky by a significant margin of about 1,500 votes.

Powalinsky was the CEO of the Community Service Centre, which runs the city’s paratransit service.

In January, Powalinsky ran afoul of Dionne when he announced paratransit would have to cut weekend and evening services unless the city boosted its funding.

“If you are reliant on paratransit, you’re living with a curfew. You have to be home by five o’clock and if you have no other transportation, your day is very short,” Powalinsky told CTV News at the time.

Dionne told reporters at the time he felt the city provided adequate funding to the service, and it was up to the Community Service Centre to budget appropriately.

Under Dionne, Prince Albert has seen some major infrastructure expansions, including a nearly $1 billion new tower for Victoria Hospital and a massive new arena and aquatic facility.

The arena and aquatic centre ran has faced significant cost overruns, with the city forced to borrow an additional $18 million in February to cover funding gaps. That’s on top of the $46 million in debt already incurred on the project.

At the time, Dionne said he was confident the $18 million loan would be covered by donation money already committed, but not yet paid, to the project.

Not everyone on council agreed.

Councillor Terra Lennox-Zepp was the main opponent when Dionne presented the motion to borrow in council chambers.

She pointed out the city was paying $1.8 million per year in interest on the $46 million in debt already incurred for the project.

“That's not a piece of lumber in the ground. That's not an hour of labor. That's just the interest we're currently paying for that for one year only. It would be financially irresponsible of us as a city to incur a further $18 million loan on this project,” she said.