Tarasoff enters battle for mayor’s office
Planner takes aim at ‘grand schemes’ that will add to city’s debt
Self-employed planner Cary Tarasoff says that if there was a “real viable” candidate running to become Saskatoon’s mayor that he felt confident in, he wouldn’t be entering the race.
Tarasoff — not to be confused with the city’s chief financial officer Kerry Tarasoff — announced his candidacy for the Nov. 9 election on Friday at Fred Mitchell Memorial Park to a handful of media, and pledged to fund his campaign entirely out of pocket.
This is his first entry into the political realm after many years of consulting on mining and building projects in the city.
He said his top priority is to “stop the grand schemes which are going to drive us further into debt.”
He released his campaign platform, which in part questions the city’s plans to fund projects such as a new library, in the middle of a pandemic, which he said will add to the city’s debt load, which sat at $331.9 million as of Dec. 31.
“We have a library. It may not be what people want down the road, but we can live with it for a little bit. We’re in a pandemic right now, and city hall is spending like (there’s) no tomorrow,” he said, pointing to the electric bus test project when ridership has fallen during the pandemic.
The total cost of the project is $533,600, but $234,300 would funded through the federal government’s green municipal fund.
A new arena, to him, would only add to the debt.
We have a library. …We can live with it for a little bit. We’re in a pandemic right now, and city hall is spending like (there’s) no tomorrow.
Tarasoff wants to see the city tackle sidewalks that are in disrepair, and is calling for more private development in place of city funding, wanting to give a chance for infill development along 20th Street West and in Pleasant Hill.
Tarasoff is not a supporter of “blanket” police defunding, saying we’re in a “more violent time,” and claiming there’s been off-loading from mental health professionals onto police.
He supports body cameras for police officers, but admitted he “doesn’t know everything he should” about the topic, but said it works in some jurisdictions.
Public safety is expected to become a prominent election issue amid greater scrutiny of policing tactics and budgets across North America after the death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black father, at the hands of Minneapolis police in May.
Tarasoff is the fourth candidate to indicate they’ll be running for mayor, following former MLA Rob Norris, and incumbent Mayor Charlie Clark, civil engineer Zubair Sheikh and entrepreneur Mark Zielke, who said he plans to launch his campaign this summer.