How come the Mayor of Amity Island got re-elected when his voters were being eaten, one by one, by a giant shark? 

Good question.

Larry Vaughan is the Mayor in Jaws. And he is still the Mayor in Jaws 2.

Why wasn’t he voted out?

The Mayor became the internet's favourite joke about the importance of local elections.

40-0

Here in Newmarket I’m running against Tom Vegh for Deputy Mayor and York Regional Councillor. At the region, he is pretty much invisible, just like the shark. 

In 40 ordinary meetings of York Regional Council in the 2018-2022 term he did not bring forward for debate a single motion which he authored. (Newmarket’s Mayor, John Taylor, does so regularly.)

Vegh’s forte is putting up lawn signs. That is his calling. It could be his full-time job.

If Tom wins, probably on a very low turnout, expect more of the same.

Disqualification

Of course, he could win and then be disqualified for breaching the statutory limits on campaign spending.

It almost happened after the 2018 election but Vegh was saved from that embarrassment by people in the development industry who bailed him out after his spending splurge. Their generosity (no strings attached!) allowed him to pay off his debts.

Vegh told Newmarket Today’s Kim Champion on 22 April 2019:

“… I was in a situation where the most I could contribute myself still left me with about a $30,000 deficit, and you can’t finish a campaign with a deficit like that, otherwise it’s considered self-funding, So, after the election, I started receiving a lot of cheques and some of those I sent back for one reason or another, if I wasn’t comfortable accepting it. But there’s a few there that I said, ‘Yeah, OK’.”

“Developers are only a small portion of the donations I received. Most of the donations I got was after the election. I already won and they just started arriving in the mail. And I had to pay off that $30,000 deficit.”

And he wants us to believe he is not in the pockets of developers.

Give us a break.

Gordon Prentice 16 October 2022