SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
There are more candidates than there are seats for the city's two main school boards, meaning both Yellowknife Education District No. 1 and Yellowknife Catholic Schools will hold elections Oct. 19.

The deadline for nominees to file their papers declaring their candidacy passed Monday.

Yk1 saw nine candidates file for the seven-member school board. Incumbents running include John Stephenson, Terry Brookes, Jay Butler and Allan Shortt. New candidates include Rajiv Rawat, Tina Drew, Zhong Liu, Satish Garikaparth and Duff Spence.

The Yellowknife Catholic Schools Board has 10 candidates for seven positions. Its incumbents include John Dalton, Erin Currie, Amy Simpson, Steve Voytilla, Miles Welsh, Simon Taylor and Francis Chang. New candidates include Revi Lau-a and Tina Schauerte.

Returning officer Evelyn Straker representing both boards said now that there are enough candidates to hold two elections, it will be important for the public to know how to vote.

"If we had have had only seven candidates, the board would have been acclaimed and there wouldn't have had an election," said Straker.

The last school board election was the first one that lead to boards having to organize their own elections, separate from the municipality.

After some confusion last time around, Straker says there is a need to inform people on how to properly register to vote for trustees. The city still does the "enumeration," or the voters list compilation for the school board election.

"One thing that is important for the public to know is that if they want to vote for YCS they have to go on the city website to enumerate that they want to be voting for YCS," Straker said.

"Otherwise the default is public ... a lot of people showed up last time wanting to vote for YCS and were listed as public. That was one of the big issues."

Janet Toner, YCS assistant superintendent, said the Catholic board remains concerned that voters who want to vote for a Catholic trustee are able to do so. She said there were a number of complaints in the last election.

People wanting to vote for the first time in the Catholic board must indicate by Oct. 9 they are intending to vote for YCS, she said. If people don't double check to make sure they are on the Catholic voters' list, it can ultimately effect voter turnout, she added.

"If you are a new voter to the City of Yellowknife you become registered and if you don't choose your school board of choice, it is automatically defaulted to public or Yk1," she said.

"Anyone who wants to vote for YCS must make sure they go onto the City of Yellowknife and make sure they are under 'separate' because that is what YCS is under in the voting system."

Debbie Gillard, returning officer at the City of Yellowknife, said the voters list has been distributed at a number of public facilities throughout the city for people to double check how their names are registered. She said registrations have been mailed out to city households and people can also make changes by going onto the city website or calling her office directly.

Elections will take place in the same venues as the municipal election and on a different ballot.

The Commission scolaire francophone will not be holding an school trustee election as there are three people in Yellowknife who have filed for the three Yellowknife board member seats. These include Simon Cloutier, incumbent, and newcomers Etienne Croteau, Christian Marcoux.

Yvonne Careen, superintendent at Commission scolaire francophone, oversees Yellownife's Alain St. Cyr and in Hay River's L'ecole Boreale. Each municipality has three trustees. Only Hay River will have an election because there are four candidates vying for their seats.

She said it isn't rare for there not to be elections in Yellowknife as there hasn't been one for the last few elections.

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