There is a Growing Restlessness in the Air

Tuesday, August 02, 2005 04:00 AM

This past long weekend brought out two things, bad weather and a growing restlessness by the birds around town as they prepare to head south.

So what you say?

Well that restlessness played out in the two calls I received from local folks who asked, "Do you think I have a chance of getting elected to council?" That means that quite apart from the birds, those people who would like to take a crack at the city council are about to begin to show their faces around .

This will be a most interesting election.

Mayor Colin Kinsley, who already has indicated that he wants to run again for the Mayor's job, is most certainly facing some opposition. He can expect to have a heavier candidate than Michael Cavanaugh who, in spite of himself, made a very respectable showing in the last civic election. This go round will see some serious candidates come out of the woodwork.

Dan Rogers would like to be the Mayor, that’s a given, but has he made a deal with Kinsley not to run with a view to being handed over the reins when the current Mayor leaves office? Who knows.

Kinsley wants the job. It is the highest paying work he has ever had and trying to find a job that pays over 100 K a year in wages and expenses (including some non taxable money) is a pretty tough job for anyone. Being the Mayor in PG is a very good job. Never mind Kinsley however, the Council members will now be turning up the gas with good news and lots of talk at Council meetings trying to sell themselves for yet another turn at the trough.

If you sit on Council, and on the Regional District, that, along with a pension (such as Don Basserman receives) makes things awfully interesting.

In the coming weeks I will be commenting more on the players, but suffice to say there are a lot of people with their noses in the air sniffing out the offerings and the past Council doesn’t have any real bag full of goodies that they can say makes them the Councillor of choice come election day.

That, is one man's opinion.
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Posted on Tuesday, August 02, 2005 04:00 AM in Views by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Eagle on August 2 2005 3:43 PM

I too feel this will be an interesting municipal election. There are typically 20 or so individuals who run for the 8 council seats. For some having a popular name is all it takes to get elected, not whether they make good candidates or not. A few incumbents will be difficult to out-seat but IMO four are extremely vulnerable based on the fact that almost three years has gone by and they have done very little by way of public service, and from now until November 19th we will see the typical grand-standing bravado at council meetings aimed at having the general public believe they have all done a good job as City Councillors, because, except for Councillor Cliff Dezell, they all want to be re-elected. IMO Dan Rogers has the best crack at the Mayor's position now and if he wants to be the Mayor he needs to make the decision to run now and not wait for Colin Kinsley to step down. Most people I talk with say Colin's time is up, he has to move on, even those who have supported him during his term. IMO we need to have a highly contested mayor's race and I hope we see a good line up of at least three credible people in the mayoral race and a sufficient number of individuals who have the smarts, committment and vision to move the City of Prince George out of its' current crisis and forward. It most likely won't be until mid October before we know exactly who all the contenders are.