WESTLOCK — The race has officially begun.
Nominations for the Town of Westlock byelection set for Jan. 10, 2024, closed earlier today (Dec. 13) and the campaign to elect a new mayor and one new councillor is underway.
Several new candidates have put their names forward to run in the last 24 hours before nominations closed at 12 p.m.
“From a municipal governance perspective, it’s always nice to see that there are citizens in your community that are interested in the future of your municipality,” said CAO Simone Wiley, shortly after nominations closed. “It’s really nice that we’ve got people who care enough to put their name forward.”
Confirmed mayoral candidates include Robin Brett, who joins Jon Kramer in the race for mayor. There are several new councillor candidates including David Truckey, Laurie Hodge, Alair Wilbert Plett, and Benita Pedersen, all who join Derrill Rayner, who announced his candidacy last week. Pederson originally announced she was running for mayor but by the nomination deadline, she switched to running for the open council seat.
The location for the vote next month will be held in the Alberta Room at the Westlock and District Community Hall and byelection hours will be the same as a general election, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. with no advance polls.
Starting today, candidates running in the byelection are free to campaign as they would in any election, and can engage in door-knocking or hold information sessions, until election day Jan. 10, 2024.
“It would be up to another organization, maybe the chamber of commerce or somebody like that, if they wanted to hold a debate and organize that,” said Wiley.
Following the byelection, the winning candidates will be sworn in during a ceremony in the Town of Westlock council chambers.
“Typically, it would be at the next council meeting, that they would be sworn in,” explained Wiley. “In this case, the next (regular) council meeting would be Jan. 22, so we may call a special meeting in order to swear them in. That hasn’t been determined yet.”
