Kelowna Mayor Colin Bashran announced he is running for re-election in front of hundreds of supporters Thursday night at Red Bird Brewing. “We certainly have our challenges as a community, but I’m really excited to continue working on them. Again, I appreciate it’s late in the game when I’m making my announcement, but I really believe I’m going to run a very strong campaign and this is day one, so here goes,” Basran said. Bashran said an experienced mayor like him would be best suited to deal with Kelowna’s current problems. “I’m ready to talk about everything the council has done, but some of the things we need to do to move forward. So I’m very excited to get into discussions, I think it’s an opportunity where the public really goes to have the opportunity to hear that there are really two very distinct and clear options,” Bashran explained. “One option is myself who has served as a city councilor and mayor for three terms now, looking for a fourth. And one of those primary candidates has never served a day on the city council and I think that will be pretty obvious.” Running for Kelowna mayor again and again, Basran says he wants to make Kelowna a place where they can raise their children, raise a family and enjoy a good quality of life. But he knows there are challenges. “There are really great things happening in our city. We are building a very vibrant and progressive community that attracts people from all over the world. But there are some significant challenges, so let’s not overlook the really good things, but we also need to keep working hard to fix the challenges we face, such as social issues, crime and affordability.” Local government elections are held throughout BC. on October 15. PROTOTYPE Kelowna Mayor Colin Bashran is seeking re-election. Bashran is announcing he will run for a third term at an event Thursday afternoon at Kelowna’s Red Bird Brewing. He is pulling back the curtain on his campaign at the last possible second, with the deadline for filing nominations Friday afternoon. He hasn’t spoken yet, but campaign materials plastered around the brewery give the announcement. Bashran’s website says his full platform will be “coming soon” but promises “real action” on crime and safety, affordability and homelessness. “There is no doubt that we face challenges as a record-breaking growth city. Such growth and popularity brings with it an increase in housing prices due to supply constraints. Homelessness is very much experienced. Crime rates are higher than we would all like them to be. People waste a lot of time in traffic. And despite a relatively smoke-free summer, we will still have to face the real climate challenges,” Basran’s website says. “These are complex and difficult issues and there are no easy, simple or immediate solutions. If there were, we would have implemented them a long time ago. What we do is take evidence-based approaches, apply recognized best practices, and even pioneer new initiatives that have not been tried before. In other words, we dare to face these challenges, not just point the finger at others and expect someone else to solve them for us.” “We’ve made some real progress over the past decade, and I’m asking for your vote of confidence to continue the important work underway,” his website continues. Basran is being contested for a second consecutive election by Tom Dias. Other mayoral candidates to file papers so far are Glendon Smedley and Silverado Socrates. More to come… Photo: Wayne Moore
