Strategy needed to replace council

Dear Editor: Re: Editorial, “Countdown begins today,” (Herald, Oct. 20).

I could not agree more with the editorial. With it now being one year until the next municipal election, it is time to carefully select Penticton’s next mayor and council well in advance and to consider the very valid point too many candidates may not favour the best person for the job.

Can there not be a candidates’ meetings in advance to help pre-select candidates, their motives and who would make the strongest top candidates rather than too many distracting from a complete clean sweep of mayor and council?

Would one of the Skaha Park groups be willing to take this on, after all we want a new mayor and council who will respect our parks, citizens and the best interests of those they represent.

The perfect mayor would be someone well-known in the community, someone whose word alone is a guarantee, someone with knowledge of municipal law, and someone willing to permanently preserve Penticton's parks.

I have thought about this for a few years now and the same name keeps coming to mind. Although I do not know him personally, I think James Miller himself would probably make the best mayor Penticton has ever had and I feel 100 per cent confident he could be trusted to bring democracy and transparency back to City Hall.

We have less than one year to convince him to run for mayor, the time is now to prepare house cleaning at city hall. Now how do we rid the senior staff that started all the secretive sell-outs of our parks ? Clifford Martin

Penticton