There will be a King James III on the ballot when Kelowna voters go to the polls in next month’s municipal election.

No, it’s not a typo and it’s not a medieval Scottish King who has time traveled to run for local office. King James III wants to be a Kelowna city councillor.

The name alone was enough to warrant further investigation by iNFOnews.ca, but he’s a bit mysterious.

There’s no official campaign website, just an X.com account and a LinkedIn page.

A quick trip down to city hall to look at his nomination papers revealed that King James isn’t an alias, that’s the name on his passport.

First name: King, last name: James.

This left questions to ask and not all of them were answered.

James declined to be interviewed, but he did agree to answer a few questions by email about why he’s decided there needs to a King on council.

“There were a lot of people that I had conversations with that told me I needed to step up. That’s what I intend to do. And if my wife thought it was a good idea; maybe I have one,” James told iNFOnews.ca.

“Eliminate homelessness in entirety in the city. Give homeownership with micro crown villages that allow homeless people in the city to achieve small scale homeownership… I can’t give away all my ideas just yet.”

His LinkedIn page shows he’s currently employed as a delivery driver, a “working royal” and the founder of “The WeXt Commonwealth of Kanata.”

He declined to say what he does as a “working royal” and other questions, but he mentioned a secret project he’s working on.

“I’ve been working on commercialization of a crown trade secret that involves the global replacement of coal with a biofuel that was created in Kelowna from a local scientist. It’s complex,” he said.

He’s also made a royal declaration on LinkedIn.

“We, James III, rightful Stuart heir, speak plainly: the vulnerable suffer while promises fail. The homeless freeze and die on our streets. Seniors perish in heat and cold, abandoned after lifetimes of service,” his royal declaration read.

“Small island peoples lose homes to rising seas. These are wounds upon Our realms. We demand immediate action.”

Kelowna’s chief elections officer Michael Jud’s job is to check out candidates who want to run for office.

“We do verify the identity of the individuals who come in to submit documents and we confirm that their legal name as it appears in the forms matches the name on a government-issued piece of ID,” he told iNFOnews.ca.

“Beyond that we don’t look beyond the information on the forms any further. There’s a bit of an honour system involved.”

Jud said he doesn’t see any issues with the current rules around transparency and determining a candidate’s fitness to run for office or whether they’re being sincere.

“It doesn’t seem necessary to tighten the rules specifically to address that particular issue. If they’re becoming problematic to the point where they’re starting to call the integrity of the process… then I think it’d be another matter,” he said.