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| The forest of campaign signs continues to grow at McBride and Second Avenue West as the City of Prince Rupert Mayor and Council races get underway |
Prince Rupert voters will have a choice of familiar and new names as they look over the 2022 candidates list for both the campaign for the Mayor's office and that for the six seats around the Council chamber.
The official listing of the candidates was confirmed by Civic elections officials on Friday afternoon once the 4PM deadline for nominations arrived.
When it comes to the top elected post in the community, four have been confirmed for the race, they include former Mayor Herb Pond who last served in the office in 2008, Steve Fitzpatrick who has also participated in a past number of community elections is also among those on the list.
Two newcomers to the political scene round out the list of four with ambitions for the mayoralty they include local businessman and an airport based worker Jason Hoang and educator Krystopher Thompson.
As for the Council race, five incumbents will be looking for a return to the Council chamber following the October 15th.
Councillor Reid Skelton-Moven was the last of the incumbents to confirm his placement on the ballot, joining Councillors Nick Adey, Barry Cunningham, Wade. Niesh and Gurvinder Randhawa.
They are joined on the ballot by three seeking a spot, included on the list is former City Councillor and Northern Health administrator Sheila Gordon-Payne, Northern Health nurse Teresa Forster and university student Andy Chugh.
As we noted last week, the listing of two women for the race, offers the voters a chance to break the hold of the males from the last four years, though that will mean that at least two incumbents may lose their spots should the tide roll out from the returns of four years ago.
So far, both Ms. Forster and Mr. Chugh have launched a social media portal to explore their campaign approach, as of this morning we have not taken note of an information stream for Ms. Gordon-Payne's campaign themes.
One note of interest on the final tallies of those seeking office comes out of the official listings from the City's election office.
We contacted Rosa Miller the Deputy Elections Officer following the release of the final list, and worth noting is that prior to deadline day the City staff had handed out 18 nomination packages for the City Council races both mayoralty and for Council.
With four seeking the Mayor's chair and eight a spot around the Council Chamber, that would mean that six would be candidates, seemingly weighed the options for 2022 and chose not to submit their names for the campaign ahead.
One additional note from the 2022 nomination release, sharp eyed followers of civic politics will note that candidate Forster, a resident of Port Edward, is running in both the City of Prince Rupert Council race and that of the District of Port Edward.
And according to Ms. Miller, that is allowed under the election rules. The only caveat being that the candidate cannot run for two positions in the same municipality; but running in different municipalies is within the rules.
The next important dates in the campaign to watch for come up on September 13th and 16th respectively as outlined by the City of Prince Rupert election officials.
End of Challenge to Nomination and Endorsement Period (Court must hear and determine challenges within 72 hours) - 4:00 pm, September 13th, 2022
Signed Originals of all digitally submitted Nomination Documents due to Chief Elections Officer; Candidate withdrawal deadline- 4:00 pm, September 16th, 2022
The official campaign period runs from September 17th October 15th, but the campaign themes are already starting to develop and a few of the candidates have already started with their door knocking and campaign events.
You can access the social media streams and more notes on the campaign as it moves forward through our archive page here.
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