With the completion of the new Sudbury Regional Hospital facility, the closure of the St. Joseph's site was imminent — however, despite the city's longtime interest in acquiring the property due to its adjacency to Bell Park and Lake Ramsey, the Sisters of St. Joseph sold the site in 2010 to Panoramic Properties, a condominium developer from Niagara Falls.
[3] The campaign was subsequently marked by conflicting claims about how much notice the Sisters gave to city council, and how much time and money the city did or didn't have to prepare a counteroffer for the site; a community group, Save Bell Park, formed to lobby for the site's protection.
If passed, this would include allowing stores in the city to open on Boxing Day for the first time; with labour unions being a prominent political force in the city, the issue of balancing the rights of retailers to set business hours against the rights of workers to holiday time at Christmas has been a persistent debate in Sudbury's municipal politics.
[6] The mayoral candidacy of David Popescu, a perennial candidate in the Sudbury area who was convicted of hate speech after advocating the execution of homosexuals in the 2008 federal election campaign, also emerged as a minor issue when he was permitted to participate in a mayoral debate sponsored by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce.
[10] Although incumbent mayor John Rodriguez faced significant criticism of his first term as mayor, an Oraclepoll Research survey released on October 13, 2010, twelve days before the election, suggested that he remained in the lead with 41.6 per cent of decided voters; however, this represented a drop of 10.2 per cent from his winning margin in the 2006 election.
[5] All of the other candidates combined had a total of 4.1 per cent support; notably, the poll did not register a single decided voter for either Popescu or Ed Pokonzie.
[17] Incumbent councillor Frances Caldarelli was re-elected by just five votes over challenger Fern Cormier, in a race with 175 rejected ballots.
[18] Cormier asked for a recount,[19] a position which Caldarelli also endorsed; however, Cormier subsequently withdrew his request after learning that the province's municipal elections law requires recounts to be conducted by the same process as the original count, and does not allow for manual inspection of ballots that were rejected by the voting machines.