New council sworn in
By Lethbridge Herald on October 28, 2025.
Alejandra Pulido-Guzman
Lethbridge Herald
The City of Lethbridge’s newly elected council members have been sworn into office.
The Oath of Office was administered for each of the nine members of the 2025-2029 Lethbridge City Council Monday afternoon during a Swearing-in ceremony at City Hall.
Mayor Blaine Hyggen and councillors Al Beeber, Mark Campbell, Belinda Crowson, Rajko Dodic, Rufa Doria, Ryan Parker, Jenn Schmidt-Rempel and Ryan Wolfe took their seats for the first time in council chambers Monday after being sworn in.
During the swearing-in ceremony, the nine newly elected members of council proceeded into council chambers led by the Lethbridge Police Service Pipes and Drums and sat in the front row to await their turn to take their oath.
Hyggen was the first t be sworn in, followed by councillors in alphabetical order with returning officer Bonnie Hilford.
Hilford said during the ceremony that she was happy the election was over and it was time to officially welcome each member to the council chamber. After the ceremony, she spoke to reporters about the process and how the ballot counting by hand went.
“The public helped us ballot count, and they helped us at the election, and it was wonderful that they were able to help us because we really needed their help,” said Hilford.
The City hired hundreds of temporary workers for the Oct. 20 election, which helped the process along well.
“We had a transparent election and I’m really proud of the work that everybody did. We had over 50,000 ballots to count, so that takes some time,” said Hilford.
She said they knew it would take a while to count, and they have been saying that for over a year. They expected to be counting until last Friday but were able to have results by Wednesday.
In explaining the process of counting ballots, Hilford said they couldn’t start counting until voting stations were cleared from electors and everyone had the chance to vote.
“We started with the (mayoral candidates) Monday night, and we did that for the purposes of the least election workers needed for that, and therefore not so much overtime and night premiums,” said Hilford.
That way they were able to keep the cost low and stayed within budget.
Hyggen said being sworn back into office for his second term as mayor was humbling.
“To have the honour of continue serving for another four years is going to be great. I hope we can continue the work that has been done, and even do better moving forward.”
He said he was glad to have a good mix of history and “new blood” in council and to have increased female representation in council chambers.
“Having some history in council is very important. Quite often I reach out to Councillor Dodic and councillor Parker and others about things that happened in council before I was in council. But just as important is to have new blood in council and I think we have a pretty good blend.”
Wolfe said he is ready to get going in his new role and he will be sticking to what he heard from the citizens during the campaign and will be bringing those concerns to council chambers.
“People are genuinely struggling to afford their basics now days, so we’re going to have to really hunker down and take a hard look at where we are spending money and how we are pending money,” said Wolfe.
He said this will help them be proactive in their efforts to avoid increasing taxes, which is something he heard loud and clear from citizens during the campaign.
Doria said she is excited to be a new member of council, and is proud to represent the various cultural communities across the city.
She said she will be bringing three priorities with her to council chambers.
“I had three pillars in my campaign: agriculture, affordability, and safe neighbourhoods. Those are my top concerns to work with council.”
Beeber said he felt like he could breathe again after the long journey of campaigning and the agonizing wait for the votes to be counted.
“I am looking forward to getting to work and answering the needs of the community. During the campaign so many people told me what their concerns were. Cost of living is huge for people, we need to look at those taxes, but we also need to make sure we have the services and that’s going to cost money.”
He said that will be a challenge council will have to deal with, how to balance keeping the services needed, without impacting the quality of life.
28-27
Based on the Municipal webpage they claim:
71 – Lethbridge-East 35,345
72 – Lethbridge-West 37,530
https://www.elections.ab.ca/resources/statistics-research/elector-counts/
As per the Federal Government webpage they claim:
Info on your electoral district:
Name: Lethbridge (Alberta)
Population: 123,847
Registered voters 95,504
Number of polling divisions: 247
https://www.elections.ca/Scripts/vis/EDInfo?L=e&ED=48029&EV=99&EV_TYPE=6&PC=T1K2N6&PROV=AB&PROVID=48&QID=-1&PAGEID=21
Yet apparently:
The City of Lethbridge says a total of 17102 people cast a ballot out of 88647 eligible voters, meaning that turnout was around 19.3 percent.
https://www.lethbridge.ca/news/posts/ballot-counting-in-progress-unofficial-results-being-added-as-counts-are-reported/
Based on the Federal Government’s citizen registery that makes 17,102/95,504 = 17.94% of eligible voters.
Please explain the difference.