Mayoralty candidate Sylvia Bishop is keeping busy making announcements during these dog days of summer.
The city councillor, leading the Team Delta slate that includes fellow councillor Robert Campbell and newcomers Joan Hansen, Kim Kendall and Simran Walia, at the George Mackie Library today announced she’ll publish a fiscal framework that outlines the local-government finances over the next four-year term.
Team Delta’s 16-page Fiscal Framework reviews the city’s finances from 2011 to 2017, and then forecasts annual expenditures and revenues over the period from 2019 to 2022.
Bishop has made a series of campaign announcements from pledging to address the big wish list of unfunded parks and recreation capital projects, unveiling a multi-point ethical code of conduct to promising to create an economic development office.
The two-term councillor will be vacating her seat at council in order run for the mayor’s chair, creating a third vacancy with Ian Paton and Heather King also not running.
Lois Jackson, meanwhile, won’t be running for re-election for mayor, creating a fourth vacancy at the council table.
The last big single turnover at council occurred in 1999 when Jackson was first elected mayor. Since then, change has been on a gradual basis. During that time only two incumbent council members who ran for re-election lost their seats in elections.
However, big changes are coming this year, highlighted by the race to replace Jackson.
Former city manager George Harvie is also running for mayor, leading an Achieving for Delta slate that includes Param Grewal, Alicia Guichon, Dylan Kruger, Cal Traversy and former fire chief Dan Copeland.
Promising a different style of government, former police chief Jim Cessford is also running for mayor. Cessford is running on the Independents Working for You slate with incumbent councillors Bruce McDonald and Jeannie Kanakos as well as newcomers Sandeep Pandher and Garry Shearer. Also part of the ticket is school board chair Laura Dixon and Jeannie’s husband Nick Kanakos, also an incumbent trustee, both intending to run once again for the board of education. Also running on the ticket for school board is Joe Muego.
The only other declared candidate, so far, running for a council seat is independent Darcy Green, who is not affiliated with a slate.
If you’re keeping count, that already makes 14 candidates for councillor and the three running for the mayor’s job. The 2014 election had a total of 13 council candidates on the ballot, while Jackson was acclaimed after nobody stepped forward to run against her that year.
Meantime, on the school board front, incumbent trustee Bruce Reid announced he’ll be running once again on the Kids Matter ticket, this time with newcomers Randy Anderson-Fennell and Victor Espinoza.
Incumbent Rhiannon Bennett, who ran with Reid in the 2014 election, confirmed she’ll be running again but on a different slate with two others. She’ll be making an official announcement shortly.
Val Windsor also confirmed she’ll be running again on her own.
Long-time trustee Dale Saip hasn’t announced his intentions. He ran in the last election on a REAL Delta ticket that included fellow trustee Fabian Milat, who announced he won’t be seeking re-election.
The nomination period for candidates to file their paperwork at city hall begins in early September and the deadline is Sept. 14, at which point a much longer official list of candidates for school board and council is expected.
The civic election takes place Oct. 20.
