A long serving politician is now the RM of Sifton's reeve.

A by-election on Wednesday attracted 27 percent of the voters and Cyril Druwe defeated Barry Brown 316 voted to 72.

Druwe will now complete the term of former Reeve Rick Plaisier. Plaisier passed away earlier this year following a battle with cancer.

“We have several issues to tackle but our water issues are the number one priority” said Druwe. He said whether its flood waters or just a high aquifer that impacts people's basements it still has to be worked on by council to make life better for residents.

“Oak Lake is another place we have to tackle some water problems. It is down quite a ways and there's a dam that needs repairing.”

Druwe has been on council for the past 19 years and he served the past eight months as deputy reeve. He stepped down in April so he could run for the reeve's job.

“We still have lots of road repairs to get down. Some of it is from recent problems like wave actions eroding municipal roads and some problem areas are from previous water events.”

The municipality has a plan in place and will work to move forward to get those projects completed and off the books.

A total of 1,432 people were eligible to vote in Wednesday's by-election and 388 made it to the polls.

The next general civic elections will be held in October of 2018.