By Election in Milton

This past Monday, Milton Town Council decided that it would be better to have a by election for the vacant position in Ward 2. This means that some Milton residents will be going back to the polls, probably in June. The decision has to be ratified by council in March and the nomination date will follow shortly after that.

In case you haven’t heard, one of the council positions for Ward 2 was deemed vacant when Father Mark Curtis was appointed to the Justice of the Peace recently, which effectively ended his political career as town councillor. He was appointed by provincial Attorney General Michael Bryant and his position started immediately. Good luck Father Mark!

As I mentioned before in my last entry and to a number of people who emailed me, I wont be running for that position. I honestly feel that a person who represents a ward should understand that area and its concerns. While many of the issues we face on daily basis are similar, downtown Milton is very unique and it will take an experience hand, one who had or has lived there for many years, to do the job. While I am very flattered at being considered, I am not going to seek any elected office for Ward 2.

I am however very excited to see there are a number of others who will be vying for the council seat. And the names continue to pop up.

The front runner position HAS to go to former Ward 4 town councillor John Challinor, who grew up in that area and represented ward 2 for the years of 1991 and 1997. He has already thrown his hat into the race to fill the vacancy and you can find out more about him www.johnchallinor.ca

Other names being bandied about are Ron Furik, who lost to Colin Best for Regional Councillor Wards 2 & 4 by close to 20% of the vote back in November. Apparently hes announced already but if you go to his website the home page just says Announcement Coming and it hasn’t been updated since Feb 20th, so there is a bit of confusion to say the least.

Peter Haight, who came in third place by close to 600 votes is also another possibility but nothing official as his campaign site hasn’t been updated since the November election.

And after the council meeting on Monday, former ward one candidate (you might remember his name) Greg Nelson has decided again to run for council. He had lived in Ward 2 for sometime but in the last election ran in ward one against yours truly, Brian Penman and Rick Day. While he lived in ward 2 he ran in our ward because he “ran here in 2003 and had gotten to know a lot of the residents.” He ran in 2003 and 2006 running in third and fourth place respectively.

In that same Champion article, he said “its not about geography…its going to be an election of who can come up with ideas.”

I certainly hope that the candidates have already come up with these ideas, before deciding to run for council.

As it stands right now, it looks to be that John Challinor is definitely the front runner to replace Father Mark. Close behind him would be Ron Furik and Peter Haight.

This will make the summer a lot more interesting.