The county’s newspapers and radio stations are once again uniting to present a series of candidates’ meetings in the lead-up to municipal elections on Oct. 22.
These meetings are a great opportunity to learn about candidates hear what their priorities are see how they think on their feet as well as meet them face-to-face. The winners will be the decision-makers creating policy that will affect your daily life for the next four years. If you are able to make it these meetings are very much worth attending.
Typically they begin with candidate introductions followed by a series of questions drafted by members of the local press. Then the floor is opened up giving residents a chance to put questions directly to their potential council representatives.
Meetings will be taking place on Thursday evenings throughout September and October commencing at 7 p.m.
The meeting for Algonquin Highlands will take place at the Dorset Recreation Centre on Sept. 13. Note that it will feature candidates for Wards 1 and 3 as the rest of the positions on Algonquin Highlands council were taken by acclamation.
The meeting for Highlands East will be held at the Lloyd Watson Centre in Wilberforce on Sept. 20.
The meeting for Minden Hills will happen at the Minden Hills Community Centre on Sept. 27 and the meeting for Dysart candidates will take place at the Fleming College campus in Haliburton on Oct. 4.
While most eyeballs in the county were focused on the Minden Hills election in 2014 this time around Dysart et al is arguably the biggest show to watch with the deputy mayor taking on the community’s longtime mayor and the county’s former EMS director going toe-to-toe with an experienced councillor for the deputy mayor’s chair.
A fifth candidates’ meeting featuring the mayoral and deputy mayoral candidates for each of the county’s four lower-tier municipalities will be held at the Fleming College campus on the evening of Oct. 11.
Anyone who is a resident owner or tenant of property in a municipality and who is a Canadian citizen 18 years of age or older can vote in that municipality’s election. A website operated by the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation called VoterLookUp.ca allows residents to ensure they are on their municipality’s voters’ list add electors to their household etc.
It can be found at https://www.voterlookup.ca/home.aspx