Rodriguez brings 'down the curtain' on public life

He trailed far behind the city's new mayor elect, Brian Bigger, who took 46.3 per cent of the vote, and behind Dan Melanson, who had 19.2 per cent of the vote.

While the 77-year-old told the roughly 30 people gathered for a sombre election party at the Radisson Hotel that he's drawn the curtains on his public life, he did leave room for other options when later speaking with reporters.

“I may appear in a different reincarnation,” Rodriguez said, adding that he might do some writing, or — in perhaps a tongue-in-cheek statement — become a political pundit or even an astronaut. “That is still one possibility, right?”

A downcast Rodriguez said he tried to offer the city a “vision,” including the possibility of building a new performing arts centre — something he ultimately failed to do when he was mayor.

“We tried to lift the eyes of the voters from their navels to the horizon, because it is on the horizon that we see the sunrises and we see the beauty of the sunsets,” he said.

In his concession speech, Rodriguez also referenced Northern Life's and other local media's endorsement of Melanson.

“They came to the conclusion about me, that I had a vision, but this is not the time for visions, they said, this is a time for bean counting, this is the time for fixing the physical infrastructure,” he said.

“How sad it is that it is never, ever the right time to build those structures that allow us to tell the story of who we are, to interpret how we live to each other and to the world outside Sudbury.”

Even so, Rodriguez told reporters the electorate has had the last word “and they are always right.”

He said he has no regrets.

“I had a wonderful campaign team,” Rodriguez said. “I thought we waged a great campaign.”

When what advice he'd have for Bigger, he said the mayor elect doesn't need any advice from him.

“He's going to have a brand new council,” Rodriguez said. “People cleaned house on the council. He's going to have a new beginning. I hope it all works out.”