Is Walt Cobb sitting on the fence? Yes.
Is he going to run for mayor in the November Civic elections, or has he made his mind up to run for a councillor position?
Some folks have approached Cobb asking him to run for mayor as they don’t like the current administration.
Others have asked Walt to run for councillor as they think that a council with possibly three former mayors (Scott Nelson, Ivan Bonnell, and Cobb) would be strong and it wouldn’t matter if Kerry Cook or Surinderpal Rathor won the race. The council would be quite strong with the experience.
Rathor has support in this community as he has been on council for 21 years and, of course, is well known.
Cook is looking for a third term, and there are not many mayors who served three terms in council history.
So, we could have Cobb, Cook and Rathor running for the top council job, but there may be others thinking of running for that position.
My grapevine has Ed Meade, former councillor, taking out papers to run for Mayor.
Go for it, Ed. It will really make an interesting four-way competition.
There is the Don DeGagne hiring and firing episode last year and some are saying that it is going to cost the taxpayers buckets of money if the city looses the court battle ... I have heard figures reaching around $1 million with costs and payouts figured into the equation.
Sue Lachance has taken out papers to run as a councillor. She worked for the city before going into the food business.
Rumour was going around that Claudia Blair, who runs the Williams Lake and District Chamber of Commerce, would throw her hat into the councillor race.
She smiled when I asked her the question and said that possibility had not entered her mind.
There will be many more rumours around this civic election in Williams Lake, and the only thing I know for sure is that I am not going to run for council.
I have been asked but politely declined.
I ran for council years ago and came seventh. The only good thing about the loss was that I beat Nelson by a few votes. If Nelson does decide to run for councillor this election, I would suspect he would be elected.
It would be good to have him back on council, in a councillor’s chair. It will certainly be an interesting civic election this fall in Williams Lake ... make sure you get out and vote.
Let’s hope we do better at the polls in terms of voter turnout this fall. The last election turnout was abysmal.
Ken Wilson is a freelance columnist with the Tribune/Weekend Advisor.