Miriam Katawazi, Centretown News
Erica Braunovan picks up her two daughters at Centennial Public School.Surrounded by family and friends who helped with her campaign, Erica Braunovan watched her percentage of votes climb during Ottawa’s municipal election on Oct. 27. By the end of the night, it was official – she’d be the new Ottawa-Carleton District School Board school trustee for Zone 10.
“I hadn’t expected to win by that much,” Braunovan says. She received 59 per cent of the vote. Runner-up Guy Hughes finished with 14 per cent.
“Right up until the last day I was knocking on doors and meeting with as many people as possible,” Braunovan says.
For Braunovan, the first 100 days of her role as trustee will involve meeting as many people from the OCDSB as she can.
“I’d like to get into all of the schools and see what they look like and have a chance to meet with principals and stakeholders,” Braunovan says. She also plans to meet as many of the parent councils as she can and hear what they have to say.
She says she’s also going to have to find balance between her job, being a mother and her new role as trustee.
The OCDSB pays its trustees $15,477 a year, according to the board’s website.
Not enough, says Braunovan, to quit her day job at Rideauwood Addiction Family Services. Add her two young children to the mix and she says it will be a “balancing act.”
“It certainly won’t work itself out over night, but it will eventually,” she says.
One of Braunovan’s staunchest supporters throughout the campaign was incumbent Jennifer McKenzie, who says she wasn’t surprised by Braunovan’s win.
“I went canvassing with her throughout the election period and by the end of it we were hearing at the door that she had the support of most of the people,” McKenzie says.
She added that although there is going to be a big turnover in December, the current board has laid the foundation for the new trustee.
“We’ve really set it up so they will have the ability to chart the course for the next four years and beyond,” McKenzie says.
As for what that future might entail, McKenzie says the board needs to formalize its environmental policies.
McKenzie says she has mixed feeling about leaving.
“I’ll certainly miss it, but I feel as though the time is right,” she says wistfully.