for road maintenance and snow clearing in the new areas". As an alderman, Reimer supported changing aldermen's titles to "councillor", stating that while the title didn't offend her, it should be changed out of respect for others' sensibilities. Early in her third term, she and Hayter jointly called for reform of Edmonton's ward system – specifically, Reimer supported increasing the number of wards from six to twelve and halving the number of aldermen per ward to one. The proposal was defeated, in part because Mayor Laurence Decore said he thought the reform wasn't needed. (The change would finally be made in 2010.) Reimer also supported increases in aldermanic salaries, suggesting that they had to work harder than members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, since aldermen need to learn issues themselves and can't fall back on a party platform. 1989 election In 1988, mayor Laurence Decore resigned to lead the Alberta Liberal Party, and Terry Cavanagh was selected by council to complete his term. Reimer challenged Cavanagh's bid to keep the job in the 1989 election. The campaign was acrimonious: Cavanagh called Reimer's endorsement by the Canadian Union of Public Employees a "blatant attempt to muscle votes for an opponent," and suggested that Reimer harboured a "socialist hidden agenda" and that the city would become known as "Redmonton" if she was elected. Reimer won a solid victory although with barely more than half the votes cast. The cost of Reimer's campaign, just over $139,000, was one of the lowest of any successful mayoral candidate in recent times. Despite the lack of municipal campaign finance rules at the time, Reimer voluntarily refused to accept donations of more than $3,750, and disclosed all donations above $375. She chose $375, the requirement in provincial elections, rather than $100, the requirement in federal elections, in the hopes that it would be more likely to entice her opponents to follow suit; however, none did. Mayor Reimer entered office with an ambitious agenda, but she was unable to implement much of it due to a fractured city council. Notoriously, alderman Sheila McKay dumped a pitcher of water over the head of alderman Brian Mason during one heated dispute; McKay later blamed her actions in part on Reimer's failure to censure Mason (who later was a NDP MLA and provincial cabinet minister) for telling her to "shut up". Faced with a divided and at times hostile city