YK election 2015
Council nominations close
Evan Kiyoshi French
Northern News Services
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
The list of candidates for city council is complete with a few 11th-hour additions.
Council candidates' campaign signs placed near the intersection of Borden and Old Airport road yesterday. - Evan Kiyoshi French/NNSL photo |
Those include community consultant Shauna Morgan, Dane Mason, spokesperson for the IserveU and Jugjit More-Curran, who has served as human resources manager for Great Slave Helicopters and Discovery Air.
On Monday, father's rights activist Mark Bogan and Thom Jarvis - a loans officer for the NWT Metis-Dene Development Fund - put their names in as a candidates for council. Nominations closed Monday.
There are 15 candidates for eight positions. Incumbents include Rebecca Alty, Adrian Bell, Linda Bussey, Niels Konge and Phil Moon Son.
Also running is Rommel Silverio and Marie-Soleil Lacoursiere under the IserveU platform, Beaton MacKenzie, Julian Morse and Steve Payne.
The IserveU platform is short on the number of candidates it has recruited but the group plans to find more from the list of current candidates.
The three council candidates signed up to use the IserveU Internet voting system are Marie-Soleil Lacoursiere, a contract negotiator for Dominion Mining Corporation; Rommel Silverio, a licensed registered nurse at Stanton Territorial Hospital and spokesperson Dane Mason.
Co-founder Paige Saunders previously told Yellowknifer the group wanted to get five candidates signed up with the platform.
With only two on the list the weekend before nominations closed, Mason threw his name in the ring as a third candidate.
Mason said he was tentatively planning to run from the start and didn't sign up in order to make up their shortfall in participating candidates.
"I made the decision on Friday ... that I wanted to be a part of this," he said. He said the group is still courting other candidates but wouldn't say who.
"We want a chance to talk first and move on from there," he said.
Mason said having only three candidates won't throw their plans off the rails.
"We're talking with some of the new comers, so there's a possibility of having more," he said. IserveU pledges to bringing greater accountability to council by tying their decisions to online voting by citizens.
Two organizations are planning to host candiate forums for the municipal elections.
The Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce announced have one for mayoral candidates and one for council hopefuls early October.
Executive director Deneen Everett said she is in the process of booking venues and making other arrangements and that more information will be available in the near future. Aggie Brockman, co-chair of Alternatives North, said her organization is planning a debate for both council and mayor candidates to be held on the evening of Oct. 14, but a venue hasn't been confirmed yet.
Voters hit the polls Oct. 19.
