Wow! Quite the surprises on nomination day Sept. 22!
No municipal elections are required in Girouxville, Falher, Donnelly and McLennan, and half the seats in the M.D. of Smoky River are by acclamation.
The lack of interest in municipal governance in the region is interesting. Elected officials must be doing a great job!
The good thing arising from the fact there are no elections in the four Smoky River communities is the added expense of running an election to the taxpayer. Some money is saved.
Plus, administration does not have to bother with running an election. Estelle, James and Lorraine must be doing handstands! Just kidding! Just kidding!
Meanwhile, in High Prairie, there are three candidates for mayorl and 15 – count ‘em, 15! – for council!
Kind of reminds The Page of that election in southern Alberta where there were over 100 names on the ballot! While 18 is nowhere close to 100, it indicates interest is high for whatever reason.
One thing for sure. In this election, High Prairie voters cannot say they didn’t have a choice!
And in Slave Lake, mayor and council are acclaimed!
I guess Slave Lakers are very satisfied with their government!
Population size, Slave Lake has over three times as many people as High Prairie, yet they only had seven people file for seats on council compared to High Prairie’s 18.
Hmmm!
A similar story occurs in the M.D. of Lesser Slave River. Council is elected by acclamation except for the reeve.
Over in Big Lakes County, only one ward is elected by acclamation. In the other eight wards, 23 people are seeking seats on council.
Double hmmm!
The Page loves election time!
Better known as guessing day!
For all the students out there, The Page read an article last week where a company sells earmuffs for students.
Apparently, these earmuffs drown out all the noise from siblings, the TV, etc. so they can really focus on the homework at hand! Have to keep up that straight “A” average, you know!
The Page thinks this is a great idea! All MPs in Ottawa and MLAs in Edmonton should get a set so they can hear the debate above all the shouting, haggling and desk pounding going on! It just might make them better politicians! Ha, ha!
The High Prairie Community Beautification Association sends its thanks to Grassroots Realty in High Prairie for a recent $250 donation.
The money will be used to fund future town cleanups. One is planned for the spring, details to be announced.
A recent cleanup did not go as well as planned. Beautification will try to do better in the spring!
The High Prairie Regals ongoing equipment giveaway was a big success, according to the club.
Over 100 people attended the Gordon Buchanan Recreation Centre Sept. 14 to fit their children with new equipment and to swap old equipment. A big thanks to Regals’ board member Naal Sharkawi for leading this initiative. Most of the people The Page spoke to were registering their children in the pond hockey program.
Many children will get to enjoy hockey this winter thanks to the Regals. Well done!
On another note regarding the Regals, they are opening training camp soon as are the rival Falher Pirates, last year’s league champs.
The Regals have a special High Prairie Light-Up game Friday, Nov. 28 with the Pirates generously agreeing to come to town to face their arch-rivals.
The Page has not yet figured out how this game was scheduled but hears it is because the NPHL statistician is a kind, generous and thoughtful person. We’ll have to check into that!
A community service was held where all the churches in the small town got together. Afterwards, the church leaders got together to discuss results.
“The service was great for us,” said the United Church minster. “We gained four new families!”
The Anglican leader chimed in.
“We did better than that! We gained six new families!”
Both stared that the Methodist minister.
“We did even better than that,” he said. “We got rid of our 10 biggest troublemakers!
Have a great week, everyone!