The campaign in the upcoming Lac La Biche County mayoral by-election had three early contenders in the weekend before Nomination Day June 23... and then there were five.
The campaign in the upcoming Lac La Biche County mayoral by-election had three early contenders in the weekend before Nomination Day June 23... and then there were five.
In the 24 hours before Monday’ s 12 p.m. nomination deadline, two candidates added themselves to the mix.
One-time municipal administrator Phylis Gauthier confirmed Sunday night that she will be seeking the mayor’ s chair. Jerry Tratch, whose LinkedIn identifies him as a safety manager for Landlara Investment, applied in the nomination window Monday. They join mayoral hopefuls including businessman Omer Moghrabi, former deputy mayor Robert Richard and veteran municipal politician Alex Broadbent.
Moghrabi, a 62-year-old business owner and baseball coach was the first to announce his intentions, and says his first foray into municipal politics is so-far-so good.
“It seems very promising and I’ m quite optimistic, but politics is a fickle game,” he said. “I’ ve been talking to a lot of people. They’ ve given me a lot of information.”
Broadbent, who is no stranger to the local political scene, spent the week before the campaign getting his nomination signatures together. “I’ ve got a few signatures, people chasing me to say, ‘Oh, I want to sign’ , and other people chasing me away,” he said with a laugh, “so it’ s a two-edged sword, really.”
Richard, who resigned from council and his role of interim Mayor June 5 to run in the election, said the campaign will be like a “state of the union” review for the County.
“There’ s a number of issues, it depends on who you talk to,” he said. “Staffing is likely going to be a question some people will have. Planning and infrastructure is always on the forefront there too.”
Moghrabi said big issues are development and council.
“Development for the County is one of the issues, and really what we need to do is move forward with a positive team effort that’ s transparent,” he said.
Broadbent said growth is a focus.
“The main point of my campaign is to promote the County as a whole so we can attract people and businesses in the area,” he said. “That’ s what we need, we need some growth.”
Richard said that if more candidates chose to run, it would change the dynamic, but not necessarily his approach.
“It always changes the dynamic. You get vote-splitting happening, that can change the outcome,” he said.
“Whether there’ s two, three or four, you basically run your campaign the way you normally run, work on issues and see what the people have to say.”
Moghrabi wants as much input as possible from the people during the election.
“If people want to run, that’ s good. We need people to get involved,” he said. “I want this by-election to be the people’ s election, I want people to come out and vote.”
The mayor's seat became open when former mayor Aurel Langevin resigned May 6. Voting day in the election is July 21. Candidates have till 12 p.m. June 24 to withdraw from the ballot. A candidate's forum will be held July 10.v
-With files from Alex Fuller and Rob McKinley
