Last week, Sept. 9 was the last day to submit nominations for the upcoming municipal elections. The Village of Burns Lake will see a three-way mayoral race, including Henry Wiebe, who has been serving as councillor up until this election.
Earlier, councillor Charlie Rensby had announced his intentions for running in the mayoral race, however, just recently, he withdrew from the race and instead decided to re-run for the councillor race.
“At this time, I would like to announce that I have decided to step back from the mayoral race to support Henry Wiebe for mayor, and I will be running for re-election as a councillor for the Village of Burns Lake,” wrote Rensby, citing two reasons, first because Wiebe is a personal friend to him and he sees him as very capable to lead as mayor, and second, because of the low mayoral wages that would be unsustainable to live on for a single 30-year-old.
“If I became mayor I would make it my full-time job and life’s work because I really believe our community needs a full-time mayor. While it pains me to step back, I hope over the next term we can find ways to make the position more sustainable without affecting taxes,” he further said.
John Rauch and Joshua Platt will be the other two candidates who will be running against Wiebe. Last year, during the by-elections, Platt had entered the race to fill a vacant seat on the councillors’ table.
Incumbents Rensby, Kristy Bjarnason, and Kevin White will be running again for the councillor positions. Darrell Hill, who had left the councillors seat vacant last year to make way for Bjarnason, will be running again for the councillor seat. David Cummer, who was also part of the councillor race during last year’s by-elections, will be running again during this year’s municipal elections.
For the Regional District of Bulkley Nechako (RDBN), no nominations were submitted for Electoral Area A. For Electoral Area B (Burns Lake Rural), Michael Riis Christianson will be re-running unopposed. Similarly, for Electoral Area D (Fraser Lake Rural), Electoral Area F (Francois/Ootsa Rural) and Electoral Area G (Houston/Granisle Rural), incumbents Mark Parker, Clint Lambert and Chris Newell will be running unopposed respectively.
Electoral Area C (Fort St. James Rural) will see a two-way race with Judy Greenway running against Margo Maley. While Electoral Area F (Vanderhoof Rural) will be a three-way race between John Alderliesten, Tim Johnson, and Shirley Moon.
No new candidates will be able to come forward now that the nomination period has ended.
General voting will be held on Saturday, Oct. 15, with advance polls on Oct. 5 and Oct. 12. There is also a mail-in ballot option.