It took just 29 minutes to declare a winner Wednesday night in the by-election for Moose Jaw City Council. Advanced polls came in about 15 minutes after the polls closed at 8 pm with the remaining results being released moments later.

Former city councillor Heather Eby jumped out to an early lead and would end up winning the council seat with just over 40% of the vote. Doug Blanc was her closest competition at 24%.

Eby went through a roller coaster election night back in 2016 as she watched her name bounce up and down the screen at city hall, going from the top six to top ten and then back. She would eventually lose her seat on council by finishing in 7th place, one position short of another term.

"Losing in 2016, was really hard for me but a lot has happened in the last 22 month for me in my life and I really think that I needed to be away for this time," said Eby after being declared the winner Wednesday. "Coming back, I'm refreshed and I'm ready to go. I'm still as passionate about the city as I was before but maybe with a little bit more gas in the tank."

Eby ran into issues at the end of her last term on council including the dissolving of the Downtown Facility and Fieldhouse Board over financial irregularities and reporting issues with Mosaic Place and Yara Centre. She was also caught up in the controversy over the LIP funding model for the cast iron replacement project, becoming a target for those against the idea.

Taking the loss hard, she later used the opportunity to re-evaluate her goals as an elected official.

"For the first, probably eight months after the 2016 election I did some really deep soul searching about myself, about how I dealt with things, about issues that we had dealt with here (at council) and how things had not gone so well or had gone well and I really stripped things away... I'm ready to face things again."

Watching from the sidelines, Eby says that she's noticed a lot of reports and motions get tabled or pushed to the side rather than being dealt with in a timely manner. While she wasn't privy to what happens behind the scenes, she says it might be a lack of communication and wants to help where she can to move some of these files forward.