Despite an increasingly crowded ballot, former mayoral candidate Terry Kilrea remains committed to running for the council seat in Bay Ward again.
Candidates who register early in the year usually do so to raise campaign funds and start building name recognition, but Kilrea, who was the primary witness in Mayor Larry O’Brien’s trial last summer, said he doesn’t need to do either.
“If you start too early, it’s a marathon. From my experience, you’re not going to engage people in a councillor’s race this early,” he said. “People know me. My volunteers are ready. I’m not going to tire them out.”
The city is in such a mess that it needs as many people as possible to get active in municipal politics, he said.
In the mayoral race, homeless advocate Jane Scharf has thrown her hat in the ring once again.
Scharf finished a distant fourth in the 2006 election, winning less than one half of one per cent of the votes.
Scharf is known for a month-long campout in front of Mayor Larry O’Brien’s office in 2007, when she protested comments he made comparing homeless people to pigeons.
Systems analyst engineer and corporate IT instructor Harley Collison, 55, has registered to run in Rideau-Rockcliffe Ward.
