Janice Lukes acclaimed in new Waverley West ward

Janice Lukes has been acclaimed in the newly created Winnipeg ward of Waverley West.

Lukes is the only candidate registered to run in that ward in the 2018 Winnipeg civic election. The deadline for filing nomination papers was 4:30 p.m. CT on Tuesday.

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She was elected in 2014 in theSouth Winnipeg-St. Norbert ward previouslythe most populated ward in Winnipeg, with about 68,000 people.

Lukesdecided to run this year in WaverleyWest, a new ward created by the city's ward boundaries commission in the fast-growing southwest corner of the city. That commission also cut the formerSouth Winnipeg-St. Norbert ward essentially in half, and renamed it St. Norbert-Seine River.

Lukes says she's going to spend the remainder of the election knocking on doors anyway, mainly to get to know voters in Waverley West ward who were not residents of South Winnipeg-St. Norbert.

She also said there are some files to finish in her former ward.

"I have a lot of loose ends to tie up," she said in a telephone interview.

She is the first council member to have been acclaimed in Winnipeg since 2002, when former councillors Garth Steek (River Heights-Fort Garry), Gord Steeves (St. Vital), and Dan Vandal (St. Boniface)ran unopposed in their respective wards.

Lukes said she decided to run in Waverley West to continue working on the South Winnipeg Recreation Campus, which she has been fighting for since before she was elected to council in 2014, and to continue working on the problem of illegal rooming houses near the University of Manitoba.

With files from Bartley Kives and Elisha Dacey