Chestermerians had their first chance to quiz the election candidates at the Library’s meet and greet Sept. 21.
All 15 council candidates, five mayoral candidates and two Rocky View School Trustee candidates were in attendance at the two-hour event.
Resident Trina Morgan said that as she met the different candidates and listened to the conversations she started thinking about the different possible council combinations and which candidates might work well together for Chestermere.
“You’re kind of thinking about creating your own team and which ones would collaborate well together,” she said.
In her opinion, the next council needs to be diverse bringing “a little bit of everything to the table.”
She said that she has already decided who to support for mayor, Marshal Chalmers.
“He’s got a lot of stuff behind him that I think can really help the community,” said Morgan.
What the meet and greet evening has done is help her to start narrowing down the options for councilors.
“Still going to have to take some time to do some research,” said Morgan.
Like many of the candidates, Morgan sees CUI and taxes as big issues that the next council will have to deal with.
“I realize in order for that to get better, you’re going to have to have commercial and larger business coming in,” she said.
From what she saw of the candidates, Morgan feels hopeful for the future in Chestermere.
Steve King agrees with Morgan that the future looks bright for the city but said that the new council will have its work cut out for it.
“With no incumbents, it’s going to be a challenge for any new council to get up to speed quickly,” he said.
From the conversations he had, King said the candidates all have a common theme of change.
To help differentiate them Kings is looking for someone who brings a different perspective or priority to the race.
“There are some good candidates, there’s some good quality leadership that I think is going to be ok,” he said.
King said that it is early in the election and expects the candidates will be working hard to differentiate themselves and earn votes in the coming weeks.
“It’s going to be a very interesting next 20 odd days before the election,” said King.
