WL 2014 Election Debate Starts

With just under 60 days to go until the start of the 2014 Nomination Period for locally elected offices for the term of December 2014- November 2018 (nomination period is September 30th – October 10th), some residents’ of Williams Lake have taken to Facebook to debate some of the issues that are likely to face both incumbents and challengers for both Williams Lake Mayor and Councillor positions including New World Café owner Sue Lachance who has posted a list of seven questions to current members of Williams Lake Council – Mayor Kerry Cook and Councillors Ivan Bonnell, Geoff Bourdon, Danica Hughes, Surinderpal Rathor, Laurie Walters and Sue Zacharias.

Please note that Councillor Rathor is running for Mayor in November and Councillor Danica Hughes announced almost a year ago that she would not be running for re-election this year

So far, WL City Councillor (and WL Mayoral Candidate) Surinderpal Rathor has chosen to answer her 7 questions so far on Facebook

This is occurring at the Williams Lake Speak Up Facebook page. View that page here

Meanwhile – one issue that is likely to come up for community-wide debate is the report looking into workplace health issues within the City of Williams Lake. The report was completed at the request of City of WL Administration as a result of the Feb 2013 City Strike and how to improve Management-Employee relations

 Local government consultant Dugal Smith who has done work previously for the City completed this report. Link to that report is here

While it is generally expected that Ivan Bonnell, Laurie Walters and Sue Zacharias will run for re-election for Councillor while Kerry Cook and Surinderpal Rathor, so far, will be competing for the office of Williams Lake Mayor – names of those who will be competing for the Offices of Williams Lake Mayor/Councillor are not yet available but this should be known starting in mid-September. I am expecting close to the number of people who ran for Williams Lake Councillor in the 2011 Election which was 14. My guess is 10-12 people will compete for Councillor while it could as many as 3 to 4 for Williams Lake Mayor, based on previous Mayor races. We should have a firm picture of the Williams Lake election race by the end of September

Meanwhile no firm picture yet for election races for School Districts #27/28, Wells, Quesnel, with the exception of the Mayor’s race there where it’ll be (so far) Bob Simpson vs Mary Sjostrom, and 100 Mile, again with the exception of the Mayor’s race there where it’ll be a repeat of the 2011 election consisting of current Mayor Mitch Campsall vs Maureen Pinkney

Finally – with the Cariboo RD’s 12 Electoral Area Directors – no firm picture yet although, for disclosure purposes, I am personally making a bid to become the next Area D Director and there will be a new Area ‘L Director (Lone Butte/Bridge Lake) while the remaining 10 Electoral Area Directors are likely weighing their options and will make their decisions by the end of September

~SF