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Most of existing council plan to run in 2021 elections

Lac La Biche County residents will be seeing some familiar faces running for council in the October 2021 elections.
Lac La Biche County council 2020
Lac La Biche County Council 2017-2021. Image: 2017 Lac La Biche County

LAC LA BICHE - Lac La Biche County residents will be seeing some familiar faces running for council in the October 2021 elections. The majority of the members already sitting on council are looking forward to start campaigning and getting the chance to continue to serve for another four years.

New provisions beginning this year in the Municipal Government Act and the Local Authorities Election At allow any candidate looking at a municipal seat to begin their campaign on January 1 of the election year. In past years, candidates could only begin official campaigns a month prior to the election. The municipal election will be held on October 18 this year.

Lac La Biche Mayor Omer Moghrabi is just one of the members of the current council looking at re-election.

“I will be seeking another term, and just like the first time around, I was just doing my civic duty. I thought that this community has been very good to me and that it was my turn to give back,” Moghrabi told Lakeland Today as the new year began

Unfinished business

Other current council members planning on running for the next election are Darlene Beniuk, Jason Stedman, Charlyn Moore, Colin Cote, and Lorin Tkachuk — all saying what keeps them wanting to come back for more is that they have some unfinished projects in mind that they would like to see come to fruition. Councillor Beniuk says that the past three years of the four-year term have gone by so fast and there are still things she would like to accomplish.

“All of the areas have projects that are incomplete, and I think I have unfinished business,” she said. “Politics on all levels of government is a slow-moving process, and I am one that likes to get things moving. I don’t think I am done yet.”

Councillor Cote echoes Beniuk’s sentiments and believes that as a council they are moving in the right direction, but he still wants to have a chance to help to push the needle forward and make more of a positive impact on the community.

“I feel we’ve made some strides; I find sometimes it’s not fast enough but we’ve got the ball rolling,” said Cote. “I definitely want to keep involved, and it would be a shame to step back now.”

Looking to the future

Councillors Moore and Tkachuk also want to continue council’s progress, both highlighting ongoing recreation projects they want to be involved with, like the aquatics facility that will be going into the Bold Center.

Moore says that one of the reasons she wanted to have a spot-on council the first time was to advocate for more recreational facilities for her daughter and all families to make it a better place to live.

“I didn’t love that we didn’t have the rec facilities for my child, I didn’t love that a lot of the projects seemed to be half finished,” said Moore. “So, one of the platforms I ran on was finishing the spray park, with the spray structure and the bathrooms, and we achieved that, and we are well on our way to achieving the sports fields. I really just wanted this to be a community that I could raise my child in.”

If Moore is elected again, she is wanting to continue to make Lac La Biche County a more family-friendly place so that people want to come to live and not have to move to get the opportunities and amenities they need.

Councillor Tkachuk says a big priority of his is one of the area’s biggest drawing cards — lake management.

“I really want to put an emphasis going forward on what we can do to make our lakes more enjoyable for the community,” he said. “Whether it’s creating better accesses with boat launches or trails, or seeing what we could do to decrease the number of algae blooms in Lac La Biche lake. Creating things like docks, piers, marinas, those sorts of things to really help highlight those natural assets that we have.”

More time

Not all the current council members have made the decision — or they are waiting to announce a decision in their own way. Plamondon’s Colette Borgun says she hasn’t fully considered a re-election campaign yet, and Hylo-area councillor George L’Heureux wasn’t ready to release his plans when contacted this week.

Owl River-area councillor Sterling Johnson couldn’t be reached for comment by the editorial deadline of the original publication of this story.

Want to run?

Nomination information can be found at the Lac La Biche County offices. Nomination papers cost $100 to file and will be accepted from January 1 of this year to Nomination Day, four weeks prior to the October election day. Any Canadian citizen over the age of 18 on Nomination Day who has been living in the municipality for at least six consecutive months is eligible to run for municipal office — as long as they are in good financial standing with the municipality and do not infringe on several legal requirements. The Candidate’s Guide can be found online through this link.

With files from Rob McKinley




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