(file photo/paNOW Staff)

By Glenn Hicks

community votes

Candle Lake and Lakeland voters head to the polls

Aug 28, 2020 | 3:47 PM

If interest so far is anything to go by, officials in the Resort Village of Candle Lake are expecting a busy day at the polls Saturday. The election features a two-person race for mayor and 11 contenders for the four council seats.

There will be four voting stations at the Candle Lake Hall including drive-thru options given the COVID-19 precautions.

“While it’s big, we didn’t think our hall was big enough to hold the volume of people coming through, so for this election we’re running both a walk-through option and a drive-thru option,” returning officer Colleen Lavoie told paNOW.

There will be two booths inside and two stations outside and Lavoie said interest in the vote has been high.

“In 2016 the mail-in ballot option was something new and we had maybe 25 people, [but] in this election we’ve had over 250 sign up and they have to be mailed in or dropped off by [Saturday’s] count,” Lavoie explained.

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She added 500 people showed up in the four hours of advance polling last week, up from 400 in the previous election.

“As someone who lives here, I was surprised at how few people I recognized at the advance poll. There’s a lot of people who live up here,” she said.

Double the amount of staffing will be on hand for the voting which runs from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Lavoie asked for everyone to be patient given the social distancing requirements and the need for regular sanitization.

Incumbent mayor Borden Wasyluk, a resident for 50 years, is aiming to retain the office he won back in 2016. He also served other terms on the council table in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

His challenger is Terry Kostyna who has been a full-time resident the last five years and served for 14 years on Martensville council.

Details about how to vote and the full list of candidates can be found here.

Meanwhile, it’s also election day in the District of Lakeland Saturday where voters will go to the Christopher Lake Legion Hall.

Deputy returning officer Tracey McShannock said just under 200 people showed up for advance polling last week.

Two polling stations will operate and there will be hand sanitizer available. McShannock said anyone who does not feel comfortable coming inside can be still be looked after.

“We will shut down the poll and go outside to take someone’s vote,” she said, noting someone would first have to notify herself or colleague Tammy Knuttila, the returning officer, who are the only two people who will be working on site.

The race for reeve features incumbent Cheryl Bauer-Hyde and challenger Walter Plessl. There are also races for council in two of the five divisions.

Details about how to vote and the full list of candidates can be found here.

—

glenn.hicks@jpbg.ca

On Twitter:@princealbertnow