Toronto council gets makeover

About a thirdof Toronto's 44 wards have new councillors after the city'sresidents turned on incumbents in Monday's municipal election.

Five incumbents were voted out of office, including Ward 32 Coun. Sandra Bussin, the speaker at council and a staunch ally of outgoing Mayor David Miller. Shelost to challenger Mary-Margaret McMahon by a margin of 9,161 votes.

In the 2006 election, Bussin prevailed over her main challenger Erica Maier by 9,090 votes.

In recent days, three other candidates in the race for Ward 32 had dropped out to throw their support behind McMahon. Bruce Baker, Martin Gladstone and Neil Sinclairalljoined a bid to unseat Bussin, whohad been dogged by controversy overoffice budgetspending and hersupport for a sole-sourced contract granted toTuggsInc., theowners of the Boardwalk Pub by the waterfront.

"That's the way it is," said Bussin of her loss."You run in an election and you hope for the best and always wonder who is actually voting for you."

Also on his way out is Adrian Heaps, the chair of the city's cycling committee,who lost to Michelle Berardinetti by 2,273 votes. Berardinetti had challenged Heaps in the 2006 election and lost by just 90 votes.

"People in this city got caught up in a wave and they think it's going to be a better world than the one they had before," said Heaps. "So the coming years will tell if they made the right decision or not."

Berardinetti said voters wanted to see "fresh faces bringing fresh ideas to city hall."

The three other incumbents who were voted out of office are:

• Ward 25 Coun. Cliff Jenkins, who will be succeeded by Jaye Robinson.
• Ward 13 Coun. Bill Saundercook, who will be succeeded by Sarah Doucette.
• Ward 1 Coun. Suzan Hall, who will be succeeded by Vincent Crisanti.

Nineof the other new faces ran in races where there were no incumbents, including Mike Layton, the son of federal NDP leader Jack Layton. He will be the new councillor in Ward 19, which was vacated by Joe Pantalone, who finished well behind victor Rob Ford and runner-up George Smitherman in the mayoral race.

"Well, you know, it feels really good," said Layton, who was endorsed by Pantalone. "This sort of came as a surprise this year the opportunity to serve my community in this capacity. I'm really looking forward to it."