Neethan Shan elected new TDSB trustee for Scarborough-Rouge River

Candidate outdistances packed field to take seat

Neethan Shan

Neethan Shan was easily elected the new Toronto District School board trustee for Scarborough-Rouge River in a byelection Monday.

Scarborough Mirror-Jan 25 2016

Neethan Shan will be the new Toronto District School Board trustee for Scarborough-Rouge River.

Shan was easily elected in a byelection on Monday night (Jan. 25), beating out a field of 19 other candidates running for the position left vacant after incumbent Shaun Chen was elected as Liberal MP for the Scarborough North riding in October. 

With 49 of 53 polls in, Shan had 3,193 votes.

In second, was Jack Wang with 1,043 votes. 

Third place was Kwesi Johnson with 295 votes, while Yama Arainfar was in fourth with 184 votes.

Other candidates running were Austin Han, Kuga Kasilingam, Sharon Kerr, Aasia Khatoon, George Lin, Dwight McLean, Ron McNaughton, Kabirul Mollah, Noah Ng, Andy Nguyen, Arjun Sahota, Piravena Sathiyanantham, Simone Si, Sandeep Srivastava, Sahl Syed, and Sonny Yeung. 

Shan, who was a public school trustee in Markham and has run for provincial and council seats in Scarborough several times, told The Scarborough Mirror in an interview prior to the election he knew there was much work to be done at the TDSB.

“Therefore my focus will be solely on doing the work necessary to make our community a better place to go to school, not on future political considerations,” he said.