This municipal election has been a long-time coming for voters watching Kamloops city hall over the past four years. It’s finally approaching and there’s no shortage of options.

There will only be a handful of chances to watch contenders for city council in action, with a pair of forums slated for later this month.

Voters should expect most of the 35 candidates to target three major issues: public safety, city hall spending and accountability.

Accountability has garnered an outsized chunk of headlines over the past four years, with a constant stream of controversies surrounding first-time politician Mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson and all the ways city council has tried to rein him in.

Public safety and social disorder is an issue like most cities across B.C., and Canada to some extent, but the approaches will vary across candidates.

Meanwhile, city hall spending has risen to new heights with hundreds of millions in debt for a swath of major civic projects. While voters have approved much of that spending, this election could be a referendum on city council’s to-do list of construction projects.

Who’s running for mayor?

Four names were expected on the list of mayoral candidates for months, but two newcomers submitted their nomination papers just before the Friday, Sept. 11 deadline.

Incumbent mayor Reid Hamer-Jackson is facing current city councillor Mike O’Reilly, along with former city councillors Nelly Dever and Ray Dhaliwal. Two others, Kris Lloyd-Middleton and Ivory Winston, joined the race for the mayor’s job on Friday.

Hamer-Jackson won the 2022 election on his public safety-focused platform, taking 31 per cent of the 23,218 total votes cast, while facing three incumbent councillors and Dhaliwal. His challenges largely started when he approached the job attempting to take charge, rather than collaborate with the eight city councillors.

Who’s running for council?

Seven incumbent city councillors are all running again including Dale Bass, Nancy Bepple, Kelly Hall, Stephen Karpuk, Margot Middleton, Katie Neustaeter and Bill Sarai.

They routinely put on a united front at council meetings, especially when issues between Hamer-Jackson and anyone else arise, but they are not in agreement on all issues, with notable divergent opinions on transportation and public safety.

Aside from the incumbents, there will be 22 other council candidates on the ballot next month.

Three are running with Dever under the Pivot Kamloops slate and should be familiar names to locals. Dennis Giesbrecht and Randy Sunderman have both run in multiple elections, though the former has run as a BC Conservative and the latter a Green candidate. Kathrine Blair-Wunderlich is also on the slate. She became known for her role with Kamloops Citizens United.

Pivot, the first Kamloops slate in more than 30 years ago since Phil Gaglardi’s Action 88, is a varied group of candidates. They are united by commitments to bring decorum back to city hall, to practice “radical transparency” and to rein in city hall spending, according to its website.

At least two candidates for council, Ian Head and Cindy Sonne, are aligned with Hamer-Jackson though they aren’t on a slate.

The only guaranteed shift from the last term is that there will be at least one new city councillor around the horseshoe, but there may be a notable wave of anti-incumbent sentiment taking shape this October.

Who is running for the school board?

Local voters will pick five of the nine trustees for the Kamloops-Thompson School District with 16 candidates to choose from.

Like city council, all five incumbent trustees are on the ballot including Heather Grieve, Cole Hickson, Jo Kang, Kathleen Karpuk and John O’Fee.

The 11 other competitors are mostly newcomers, but they include a handful who are known locally like Bonnie McBride, who is chair of the district parents’ advisory council. Troylana Manson, known as a local addictions advocate is also on the ballot. Jimmy Johal is taking another run for political office and local realtor Aaron Krausert will be on the ballot.

How Kamloops voted in the past

The 2022 election saw the mayoral competition split among a handful of contenders and an overall turnout of less than a third of eligible voters.

Hamer-Jackson won with 7,298 votes, or just over 31 per cent of the total 23,218 votes cast.

Similar to other local governments, voter turnout is far lower than the provincial and federal elections, which have seen between half and two-thirds of voters cast a ballot.

Hamer-Jackson’s victory four years ago appeared to represent a frustration with social disorder on Kamloops streets and a rejection of establishment politics. His term resulted in his own personal rejection of the establishment but little, if any, political success.

Meanwhile, all three 2022 council incumbents won back their seats that year, but it was newcomer Katie Neustaeter who collected the most votes with 11,583.

Go here to see the full list of candidates.

How you check out the candidates in person

The two election forums include an in-person event focused on seniors at the Mount Paul Community Food Centre. Sept. 24. That’s a a two-hour forum at 140 Laburnum Street, starting at 3:30 p.m.

The other is on Sept. 23 and hosted by the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce and Castanet. The all-day virtual event starts with three council candidate sessions at 9 a.m., followed by mayoral candidates at 6 p.m. It’s expected to be streamed online, but the details have yet to be announced.

Municipal election day is Saturday, Oct. 17.