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Municipality preps for elections

Council is already getting ready for the municipal election in November.

At Monday's meeting council directed staff to investigate the bylaws which outline the process in the event of a tied election.

In the last election, a tie between Marianne Wade and Dave Kirk led to a runoff election for the sixth spot on council among all the candidates who had not been voted into power.

The runoff election was costly both in terms of money and in time – it was held two months after the first election.

"I don’t think any of us were happy with that," said Councillor Ken Melamed.

To prevent this from happening again, council can approve a bylaw, which in the event of a tiebreaker situation would see the winner declared "by lot."

Municipal Clerk Brenda Sims said traditionally that means putting the tied names into a hat and drawing the winner.

Mayor Hugh O'Reilly, whose brother lives in Las Vegas, joked at Monday's meeting that in Vegas they draw a card and the highest card wins.

Staff will investigate the options and report back to council. The bylaws must be adopted by early August.

Staff was also directed to work on clarifying the bylaws which deal with posting signs around the valley in the run up to the election. The bylaw does not allow candidates to nail signs to trees and they can only post signs on utility polls with the utility’s permission.

At the meeting council also approved Brenda Sims as the Chief Election Officer and Linda Manheim as the Deputy Chief Election Officer for the 2005 local elections.