Lions Bay may acclaim its mayor and council
With one day before the nomination period closes for this fall’s municipal election, and just enough candidates to fill its council seats, the Village of Lions Bay could end up with an all-acclaimed council.
Earlier this week, Mayor Karl Buhr, who is not running for re-election, became concerned that there were only three people nominated for four council positions, two of whom are incumbents.
A fourth person submitted their papers on Thursday afternoon. Buhr wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. During the 2014 election there were three mayoral and 10 council candidates.
“I’m trying to work out why it would be,” Buhr said, of the apparent lack of interest. “Maybe complacency, because there is so little controversy this time around that they’re not concerned. Maybe they’ll all come out of the woodwork at the last minute.”
Lions Bay’s chief election officer, Peter DeJong, said late entries are a possibility — he wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple on Friday.
“When we had a byelection last year, it just so happened that we had all three candidates show up on the last day of eligibility to submit their nomination papers,” he said. “We were wondering whether we were going to have anyone.”
It’s not that village residents aren’t engaged. They have consistently showed up to vote, with about 61 per cent of registered voters showing up during the last two elections. It’s the second-highest voter turnout in Metro Vancouver after Bowen Island.
However, there is some precedent for a lack of candidates. During the 2008 election, there was a two-person mayoral race but all four councillors were acclaimed.
Buhr said acclamation of all four council positions and the mayor this year would be unprecedented.
“It would be one for the books. No lawn signs, no candidates meetings. It would be very, very strange,” he said. “From that perspective, I don’t like it at all because people would be even less aware of the issues than before.”
Max Cameron, University of B.C. political science pro- fessor, said it can be difficult to attract good people to public office, because it tends to be a lot of work and local politicians are often underpaid.
“We need to look at how to make a life of public service more rewarding,” he said.
Cameron suggested that a lack of people putting their names forward for office is not necessarily a bad thing.
“It may well be the case is people are just not feeling there is a burning issue that needs to be addressed.”