Just two Windsor council candidates file on first day
‘Fresh Start’ campaign plans slate and most incumbents plan to run
Tom Hensel says he registered to run for mayor on the first possible day Tuesday to maximize his electioneering time, and get some early exposure and name recognition. Few did the same thing.
The 52-year-old entrepreneur and app developer was one of only two candidates for council to register on the first day of the nomination period, which runs to July 27 at 2 p.m. for the Oct. 22 municipal election. The first was Xavier Gonzalez, a 39-year-old property manager with a PhD in economics, who walked into city hall as soon as it opened at 8:30 a.m. to register his candidacy for Ward 9.
“I’m just ready and I’ve been preparing for a month and I wanted to be able to start receiving donations,” said Gonzalez, given candidates can’t receive donations or spend money on campaigns until formally registered.
In the last municipal election in 2014, six candidates registered the first day — one for mayor, five for city council. Because this nomination period starts later and ends earlier than in 2014, some expected many candidates would be raring to file their papers as soon as possible. Chuck Scarpelli, the city’s manager of records and elections, was somewhat surprised that just two candidates for council registered. The only other candidate registering in Windsor was current public school board chairwoman Kim McKinley, who is running for re-election to one of six trustee positions within city limits.
In the 2014 election, 54 ran for one of the 10 council seats and 12 ran for mayor. Hensel said he’s part of a slate of candidates running in 2018.
“We’re calling the campaign ‘Fresh Start,’ ” he said, suggesting his group will be mounting campaigns against the mayor and current councillors who tend to side with the mayor on contentious issues.
“If you were to draw a little map, you could see how we fall pretty clearly on the side of the four,” he said, referring to the four councillors — Chris Holt, Rino Bortolin, Irek Kusmierczyk and Bill Marra — who tend to vote together on contested issues that end up in 7-4 votes. The slate will also include a candidate in Marra’s Ward 8, Greg Lemay, because Marra announced he’s not running for re-election. “There’s a lot of good things Bill did in the ward and this is an opportunity to continue with that,” said Lemay, 32, who plans to file his nomination papers Wednesday. He said a slate is one way to describe the informal group of candidates who plan on running. “Obviously you’re seeing with city council the 6-4 and 7-4 votes all the time. I think having an opportunity to jump in there and switch some of those votes, that’s going to be beneficial.”
While no incumbents filed their papers Tuesday, the majority have indicated they plan to seek reelection. Only Marra has definitively said he’s not running. Mayor Drew Dilkens has yet to announce while Bortolin could end up going to Queen’s Park if he wins his provincial election bid for the Liberals in Windsor West.
Other members of this Fresh Start slate, according to Hensel, include Mohamed Chams, who placed third out of eight candidates in Ward 10 last election, and Joey Wright, who placed third out of seven candidates in Ward 5.
“We’re going to give it our best shot and hope everyone tries their heart out and may the best person win,” said Hensel, who has a law degree from York’s Osgoode Hall but has never practised as a lawyer. Originally from Toronto, he moved to Windsor 10 years ago to be with a girlfriend and fell in love with the area and its people.
He said he and fellow members of the slate have been talking for years about trying to improve their city. “We just got tired of walking on broken sidewalks and driving on roads with potholes,” he said, adding he wants to present an “alternative vision” for the city, “and take us in a different direction.”
His LinkedIn page says he lives with his “trusty sidekick, Newton, an adorable English springer spaniel with a sweet tooth for chalk.” Gonzalez’s main priority if elected to Ward 9 (where Hilary Payne is the incumbent) is to set up a system where constituents can vote online on all issues. He would post the agenda for coming meetings and use the latest technology to seek their views. He would vote for what his constituents want, he said. “The traditional way gives too much power to the politicians, it’s not fair to constituents to only vote once every four years,” he said. “I want to set an example of how to improve democracy. The technology is there and it’s ready to be used.”