Chris Lowrey
SHAWVILLE May 2, 2018
Former Shawville councillor and mayoral candidate Bill McCleary has filed his papers to fill the vacant seat left by the untimely passing of Shawville Councillor Peggie Sheppard.
McCleary filed his papers on April 27.
“It’s not the best way in the world to come back in,” McCleary said of the passing of Sheppard. “I was interested in it before and I’d like to do it again.”
McCleary sat as a councillor in Shawville for one term before he decided to throw his hat into the 2018 municipal election for the mayoral spot instead. He lost by 16 votes to current Shawville Mayor Sandra Murray in an extremely close race.

Although McCleary said he’d welcome others to join the race, he hopes he is the only candidate so the municipality can avoid a costly election.
“I hope for the sake of the town, because it’s big money,” McCleary said. “I’ve heard in other years its upwards of $20,000 to have an election because it’s the same for one [candidate] as it would be for six.”
McCleary said he hasn’t identified a major priority just yet but if he had to pick one off the top of his head he said it would be the arena.
“There’s already a committee set up to look into building a new arena,” McCleary said. “But I don’t think that will fly unless they get big time grant money.”
He added that if the town’s share for a new arena is two to three million, it’s not affordable.
Meanwhile, nobody else has filed their papers to run for the council seat. The deadline to file those papers is May 11 at 4:30 p.m.