Just like kids waiting till the last moment to do their homework, several candidates for Trent Hills council didn’t get their nomination papers in until just before the deadline on Friday.
The official tally will be released on Monday, but based on what’s currently reported on the municipal website, there will be races for all the seats except deputy mayor. Rick English, who has been the councillor for Ward 4 (Warkworth) the past four years, was the only nominee for deputy mayor, so he will be acclaimed to that spot.
Current deputy mayor, Mike Metcalf had been the lone candidate for mayor until Thursday when Steven Haylestrom joined the race. Haylestrom has a website that provides background on him and his reasons for running. He highlights cell service, transportation, fiscal responsibility and what he calls positive development. He’s CEO of Modular Solutions, a company focussed on helping developers use factory-built homes.
On Friday, two candidates joined Karen Ulrich in the race for councillor in Ward 1. Real estate agent and musician Jana Reid is running and so is Adam Baguley.
In Ward 2, current councillor Rob Pope is seeking re-election and has three challengers: Tina Burke, Adam Briggs, and Erick Baron-Joyner.
In Ward 3 (Campbellford), the candidates are Nader Eid, Viv Smallwood, and Sandra Walls.
In Ward 4 (Warkworth), the candidates are Emilio Ojeda, who came second in 2022, Leslie Mahoney, Meagan McLean, and Ken Tully, who represented the area from 2018 to 2022 but didn’t seek re-election then.
In Ward 5 (Hastings), the candidates are Ethan Armit, current mayor Bob Crate, and current councillor Dennis Savery.
There should be some interesting races. I hope we will have an opportunity to hear from the candidates at several public meetings during the campaign.
What’s important to you?
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a project I’ve been working on with Herman van den Berg, a retired Lakehead University business professor, to ask local residents what issues they care about in this campaign.
More than 200 people have responded, which is great. We plan to give folks a couple of more weeks to fill out the survey, which takes about five minutes, then report on the results and ask the candidates for their thoughts, well ahead of election day, which is Oct. 26.
Just click this link to go to the survey. If you’ve already filled it out, please don’t do it again.