Political Olympics now on

Okanagan voters will go to the polls Oct. 20 to elect mayors, councillors and school trustees

There will be a race for mayor in West Kelowna after all.

As nominations closed for municipal elections in B.C. on Friday afternoon, at the midnight hour former city council candidate Mary Mandarino stepped up to challenge Gord Milsom for the mayor’s chair. Milsom was expected to be acclaimed. Of all the towns and cities within the Okanagan Weekend’s readership area, only Chris Piper in Armstrong will win by acclamation.

In Kelowna, Mayor Colin Basran will face four challengers. A total of 22 candidates will challenge for eight spots on city council.

Penticton has an even larger field of candidates to select from. Three additional challengers came forward on Friday making the mayor’s race a six-man race which includes incumbent Andrew Jakubeit.

There are also 26 people running for six spots on city council plus seven for the school board.

On Thursday evening, it appeared as though four candidates would be acclaimed for the school board, but three came forward throughout the day making it a seven-person race.

Among the city council hopefuls who filed papers on Friday in Penticton was Julius Bloomfield, former deputy leader of the B.C. Green Party and a mayoral candidate in 2011, who lost to Dan Ashton by 147 votes.

In Vernon, four will challenge for the mayor’s chair plus an additional 21 candidates for city council. Mayor Akbul Mund is running for city council.

In Summerland, there were no major changes to the way voters had anticipated the ballot to look like. Erin Trainer, first elected to council in 2014, is not seeking re-election.

There will also be a challenge for mayor in the South Okanagan as Osoyoos mayor Sue McKortoff will face perennial candidate Doug Pedersen, and Ron Hovanes in Oliver will be challenged by Martin Johansen.

In Peachland, Mayor Cindy Fortin will face off against five other mayoral hopefuls.

There are 12 candidates running for four spots on town council, plus an additional four candidates running for the school board.

There are several other intriguing subplots that developed on Friday.

• Karla Kozakevich, Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen director for Naramata and board chair, is being challenged by Tim Hodgkinson, who ran unsuccessfully for Penticton City Council in 2014.

• Patty Hanson, the controversial regional district director from Ellison-Joe Rich, did not file her papers as expected. She had stated as late as Wednesday that she would seek re-election, even though she had missed all 12 meetings this year.

• In Kelowna, Josh Hoggan, who had said he was running for mayor and posted an active social media campaign, has decided not to run for office.

• Julia Fraser, a school board trustee from West Kelowna, will run again for the Central Okanagan School District, but in Kelowna.

She and her family have moved to the Mission area.