City councillor Scott Nelson confirmed Wednesday he will seek another four-year term as councillor in the upcoming municipal election in October.
“It’s been a very exciting last four years and council has really pulled together,” Nelson told the Tribune. “New jobs are being created and there’s so much construction in all corners.”
When asked why he isn’t going for the position of mayor, Nelson didn’t hesitate to praise Mayor Walt Cobb.
“He’s done a fabulous job leading the team and community through some tough times, including the evacuation process last year. The amount of work that has been done under Mayor Cobb has been huge. It’s been one of the busiest four-year cycles of all the times I’ve been involved with municipal politics.”
Before this term, Nelson served nine years as a councillor and three years as mayor. In 2011 he ran for mayor against then-mayor Kerry Cook and Walt Cobb.
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Nelson said council will still be making some significant and large announcements in the next six weeks on projects that will have profound impacts on the community.
“We’ve got the community turned around and going in the right direction,” he added, highlighting the corporate reorganization of the city, holding the line on taxes and investing in the economic development side. “We’ve created a positive investment climate for people and now we are starting to see a lot of opportunities taking place.”
He said he wants to stay on council to keep the momentum going of trying to diversify the economy and keep jobs in Williams Lake.
“I think we are going to see not only the Cannabis industry here, but the spin-offs as well.”
So far Cobb and councillors Craig Smith and Jason Ryll have confirmed they will run again, while councillors Laurie Walters and Sue Zacharias confirmed that they will not.
Additionally, local realtor Michael Jones and chiropractor and school trustee Sheila Boehm have announced they will also run for city council.
Nomination packages were first made available on July 27 and will be open for submissions from Sept. 4 to Sept. 14 at 4 p.m.
“It does not cost anything to submit a nomination, and people wanting to run don’t have to live within the city limits, but to nominate someone you have to live within the city limits and be on the registered voters list,” said the city’s chief election officer Cindy Bouchard explained, noting each nomination requires the endorsement of two registered voters.
Bouchard encouraged people thinking about running to consider the amount of time it takes to be on city council.
“By the time you add it all up, it’s the equivalent of two or three days of full-time work a week,” she said. “There’s nothing worse than having someone get elected who doesn’t understand that.”
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