‘That glass ceiling is now broken’ says Zuccolo of mayoral win

I had a feeling since day one that the city was ready for a change, and I think the results show it. Amir Zuccolo is Charlottetown's mayor-elect, the first woman in over 50 years to be elected to the position in PEI's capital. She scored a decisive victory over six other candidates. Dorothy Corrigan was the last woman to hold the job in the early 70s, so Zuccolo says this win feels significant. And pushed up against that glass ceiling, making it weaker and weaker every time. Election PEI's unofficial results show Zucalo got nearly 40% of the vote and over 1,500 more votes than second-place finisher and incumbent Philip Brown, who was going for a third term. Congratulations again. We definitely had a good feeling going into yesterday night because we'd been on the ground for three months and we'd heard clearly all around the city that people were looking for change and I felt like I was the candidate that represented real change. When it comes to change, Zuccalo says she wants to address affordable housing, better transit, including better infrastructure for active transportation and bus stops, more transparency in government, and a plan for extreme weather events like Fiona. That glass ceiling is now broken. Only one in four candidates running in PEI's largest municipalities this year were women. Some advocates say Zuccalo's win is significant. So the more times we have women like Amir breaking that barrier, the more likely we are to see more women think that they can do that too next time. And that's what we heard sort of from all the women candidates running was, you know, that they felt that But that previous people who had gone in those spaces made room for them, but also that it was their responsibility to sort of to make that effort to show that it was possible. Bell also noted that three of the five mayors in PEI's largest municipalities are now women. As for Zucalo, she says her first steps are to meet with councillors to see what issues they heard about at the door and then get to work. Connor Lamont, CBC News, Charlottetown.