EVENT UPDATE
Tuesday night's Mayors' Forum is now an in-person event at the Bold Center Community Room. There is an occupancy limit of 165 people and pandemic guidelines are in effect. The event will also be on facebook live. TUESDAY 7-9 pm Mayors' Forum. Hosted by the Lac La Biche POST and the Lac La Biche & District Chamber of Commerce.
The nights of Tuesday, Oct. 5 to Thursday, Oct. 7 will see three election events in Lac La Biche County — a trio of candidate forums hosted by the Lac La Biche POST newsroom and the Lac La Biche and District Chamber of Commerce.
The first night of the three-event series will feature the four mayoral candidates in the Lac La Biche County elections. The event will be held virtually. All four have been invited to sit in the Community Futures - Lac La Biche boardroom for an online interface with the public.
Wednesday and Thursday night events will split the candidates from all seven electoral wards in the municipality. Wednesday will see candidates from Wards 1-4 and Thursday will see candidates from 5-7. The Wednesday and Thursday forums will take place at the Bold Center's Community Room.
The four mayoral candidates are also expected to be on hand for each of the Wednesday and Thursday forums. Organizers have received special exemption approvals from Alberta Health Services to have up to 165 people inside the Community Room each night. For those who can't be in the room, Chamber President Dave Phillips says the events will be streamed live online — and an FM broadcast of the events can be heard in the west parking lot of the Bold Center.
Along with the four mayoral candidates, there are 27 candidates running for eight ward positions around the Lac La Biche County table.
Lac La Biche County candidate list:
(incumbent council members noted with *)
Mayor: *Omer Moghrabi, *George L'Heureux, Arlene Hrynyk, Paul Reutov
Ward 1: *Darlene Beniuk, Wanda Austin, Ab Beisel, Lee Hillary, Alvin Kumpula, J. Paul McLeod
Ward 2: Jodi Brownlie, George Buchanan, Kevin Pare, Liz Shaffer
Ward 3: *Colette Borgun (Elected by acclamation)
Ward 4: *Jason Stedman, Brad Boychuk, Emma Macor, Lloyd Prefontaine
Ward 5: *Charlyn Moore, Terry Colosimo
Ward 6: *Sterling Johnson, Daniel Quintal, Al Sturek
Ward 7: *Colin Cote, *Lorin Tkachuk, Dan Anderson, Brian Deheer, John Mondal, John Nowak, Dale Sedgwick
With such a large roster of candidates, Phillips said the balance between informing the public and adhering to COVID-19 measures was important.
"The Chamber and The Post recognizes the importance of the race and are doing everything we can to emphasize this," he said.
Early Advance voting
Just two weeks after the official deadline for candidates to file their nomination papers, and with still another two weeks to go before the October 18 municipal election, Phillips said the earlier time-frame for the forums was selected to get the candidates in front of the public before the advance votes, which begin on Oct. 9.
"We wanted to do it before people were voting in the advance votes," Phillips said.
The two other dates for the advance votes are October 13 and October 15.
Watch the events
For the mayor's debate on Tuesday, with no in-person audience, live broadcasts will be available at the Facebook pages of the Lac La Biche POST and the Lac La Biche and District Chamber of Commerce. Questions will be asked to the candidates by POST and Chamber officials. The public is expected to be able to participate through online commenting during the two-hour event.
"It's going to be different than the council forums we've hosted for the last 40 years," said POST publisher Rob McKinley. "Even though there may not be that electricity from a live room in front of the mayors, I think there are enough issues on people's minds that there could still be sparks."
All three forums will begin at 7 pm. Phillips said each will have a run-time of two hours and will include time for each candidate to present a short introduction, a short closing statement and responses to questions from organizers and the public.
