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With Moose Jaw voters heading to the polls on Nov. 3 for a mayoral by-election, there is the possibility that current city councillors will want to run for the seat.
If that happens, the provincial Cities Act states that a councillor does not need to resign from their position in order to run for mayor. If that councillor wins the by-election, it would then trigger a second one to fill the councillor’s seat.
“I don’t understand the wisdom of that in the Cities Act,” said Coun. Heather Eby. “It’s a Cities Act thing, it’s not a Moose Jaw thing. But, it puts a financial burden on the city.”
“It’s hard to get a good voter turn out in one by-election then what kind of voter turnout are you going to get in one three months later?”
There was some discussion among city councillor’s at Monday night’s meeting about whether a by-election for mayor and city councillor by-elections can take place at the same time.
City councillor and Acting Mayor Dawn Luhning said she didn’t think it was possible because of situations such as staggered calls for nominations, but she did agree the two by-elections spread over a couple of months would be a burden on the city. The estimates it will cost between $60,000 to $80,000 to run the upcoming mayoral by-election.
“It is extra cost, so I don’t know how we get around that, but it is good for Moose Jaw to know that there could quite possibly be another by-election after this one,” Luhning explained.
Eby felt it shouldn’t be that hard to run a pair of by-elections at the same time as Moose Jaw voters are likely tired of constantly going to the polls.
“If you have three councillors running then you run for the mayor and you run for three council candidates. I don’t think it’s that complicated. I feel we can all run because you’ve got nothing to lose. Another by-election in 2022. That means we will have seven elections in the City of Moose Jaw since 2009,” she said.
The mayoral by-election is set for Nov. 3, with calls for nominations going out on Sept. 15. So far, no councillors have announced whether they are running. Candidate nomination papers must be filed by Sept. 29.
