In nine months, or 39 weeks from today, Prince George residents will be heading to the polls to vote for mayor, city councillors and school board trustees.
Unlike Ontario, where the nomination period starts in January and residents declare their intentions to run early, candidates running for local government have a 10-day nomination period to declare, from 46 to 36 days before the vote, or about the first week and a bit of October.
As a result, both interested newcomers and incumbent politicians in Prince George often keep their cards close to their chest and don't say they're running until the nomination period is underway.
On the flip side, MP Dick Harris declared this week, more than 18 months before the next federal election, that he still likes his job after eight terms in office and sees no reason why he shouldn't run again in the fall of 2015. That announcement, however, should be taken with a grain of salt. Harris, 69, made no guarantees he's running again, leaving himself lots of room to change his mind in the months ahead. More importantly, Harris was speaking not to his constituents in Cariboo-Prince George but to the folks pondering nomination runs to replace him as the Conservative candidate.
One of those people rumoured to be pondering a bid to succeed Harris has been Mayor Shari Green.
It doesn't matter how true the rumour is in this case, because it's a political win for Green regardless of the outcome. If card-carrying Conservatives in Cariboo-Prince George rally to her side with money and support, it sets her up well for the next stage of her political career. If they don't, that's fine, too, because not seeking the Conservative nomination would play well into her reelection campaign for mayor. Her narrative would be that she was courted to succeed Harris but, while she was flattered to be considered, she is devoted to the residents of Prince George and has promises to keep that she made during her last campaign that she wasn't able to meet in her first term in office.
Much of the chatter online and in coffee shops among local political watchers has been that Green has a snowball's chance in August of being reelected to a second term as mayor but where have we heard talk like that before? The same political watchers, present company included, were writing off Christy Clark and the B.C. Liberals nine months -heck, nine days - before the provincial election and look how that turned out.
Like Clark, Green is a political animal with sharp teeth and if she goes for another term, she won't be campaigning to finish second. Don't count her out.
Even if the argument is made that Green isn't as politically sophisticated or doesn't have the team Clark had behind her to pull off the surprise win, there is still that point Clark made over and over before and during the campaign. When you're the boss, you're only compared to perfection, but when you're compared against other people who also want to be the boss, that's when you find out what people really think of you.
So who else wants to be mayor?
Brian Skakun? Not likely. Skakun has learned after four terms on council that a councillor enjoys significant power without the headaches of working full-time on the fifth floor at City Hall. Being mayor, as Green quickly discovered once elected, is not much more than being a piata with a gavel most days.
Lyn Hall? Maybe, but he'll want more than good will and best wishes behind him. Lots of people say they'd like him in the mayor's chair but are they willing to put their money where their mouth is? Spending $10,000 is plenty to get elected city councillor but anyone, Hall or anyone else on the outside looking in, who's thinking about running against Green better have a minimum of $50,000 in the war chest. There are still no limits in B.C. on municipal election spending so local voters really do get the best local government money can buy. Green spent more than $80,000 in 2011 to unseat incumbent Dan Rogers. Sixty-six individual and corporate donors gave more than $100 each to her 2011 campaign so a better question to ask about what Green's prospects are in 2014 is how many of those 66 supporters are willing to back her again?
Her political future will be decided by those individuals, not by fearless online commenters hiding behind a nickname or the grumpy Guses at the coffee shop.
