Milton Mahoney and Rachael Weber will be the two new trustees on the School District 57 board of education.
Mahoney will be a Prince George trustee while Weber will be the Mackenzie representative. The two were elected in a byelection Saturday, which was necessitated by the resignation last year of trustees Trent Derrick in Prince George and Shuirose Valimohamed in Mackenzie.
Mahoney secured 293 votes in a close contest. Brian Trotter ended up with 281 votes, Audrey McKinnon 267 votes, Shannon Freeman 221, and Andrew Burton 75 votes.
Rachael Weber won the Mackenzie seat with 76 votes, beating out David Szucsko with 38 votes.
Derrick and Valimohamed resigned following the release of a special advisor’s report outlining systemic racism and a culture of fear at the district. They said they could not work in such a system.
Mahoney said the report prompted him to run for the seat. In a Facebook post he complained about Education Minister Jennifer Whiteside’s “almost singular” focus on systemic racism. He feels the minister “painted every citizen of Prince George as a racist.”