Mayor Brian Taylor is looking to collect support for his drive to be elected as an NDP MLA nominee; he will be running against two other candidates.
Taylor said that if the provincial election were postponed until next year, he would give up the opportunity to run for mayor.
“If there is an election in spring and I have the nomination at that point for the region, I will not run as mayor,” Taylor said. “That’s the only way you can do it. You can’t insult the public by asking them to vote for you on the basis that if something better comes along you’re going.”
Taylor said that though the speculation is on a September election, he wants to make it clear that he would make a commitment to one or the other.
“I wouldn’t jeopardize that by having anything but a black and white position,” he said.
One issue that did come up during the meeting, though more of a provincial issue, was the subject of Broadacres Care Facility. Taylor said that there are two sides to the issue. One being the fair awarding of the contract to Golden Life Management, as in a recent council meeting the city had to approve the sale of the property.
There was an outcry from some citizens to stop the deal, but Taylor said that this had to be looked at away from the other issue, which was the mistreatment of Rod Gustafson, proprietor of Broadacres. Taylor noted that the city would have been in legal trouble with Interior Health if the deal were stopped.
“I think the process of which they dealt with Rod has been very poor, it’s been wrought with all kinds of problems of communication from one side to the other,” he said.
“There’s very little we can do other than putting Interior Health in a position where they’re responsible for responding to their community, and they’re not responding.”