Veteran City of Terrace councillor Sean Bujtas will be the next mayor after being the only person to file nomination papers as of the deadline of 4 p.m. Sept. 9.
Elected first to council in 2014 and again in 2018, Bujtas will take over from Carol Leclerc who is retiring from local political life after two terms as mayor.
But things are much different when it comes to the six council seats as 15 people filed by the deadline, making for the most crowded council hopeful field in memory.
Four of the 15 are incumbents — Lynne Christensen, James Cordeiro, Brian Downie and Dave Gordon — and one, Martin Holzbauer, was an unsuccessful candidate in 2018.
One candidate, Lynn Parker, is bringing past experience as a Kitselas First Nation councillor.
The remaining candidates — Chris Apps, Inder S, Dhillon, MaryAnn Freeman, Melissa Linn, Peter Moloney, Yvonne Nielsen, Danny Nunes, Keenan Stella and Sarah Zimmerman — are new to local government elected office.
Turning to the local seats on the Kitimat-Stikine regional district, the election for the Thornhill seat on the regional district board will be a replay of the 2018 vote.
Current Thornhill direct Jeffery Hammond, who defeated then-incumbent Ted Ramsey in 2018, is being challenged by Ramsey.
And in Area C, that’s the rural surrounding Terrace and down past Lakelse Lake excluding Thornhill, incumbent Bruce Bidgood is being challenged by Martin Holzbauer. This is another repeat of 2018 — Bidgood defeated Holzbauer by just two votes, 126 to 124. And this time there is a third challenger for the seat, Gill McKean.
Holzbauer is also running for a seat on Terrace city council as there is nothing in the legislation governing local elections to prevent a person from running for more than one elected office as long long as that elected office is in another jurisdiction.
There will be no election for the two Terrace seats and the one Thornhill seat on the School District 82 board.
Incumbent trustees Ed Harrison and Margaret Warcup were unoposed for the two Terrace seats while newcomer Mike Maxim will be the Thornhill trustee, replacing Sandy Watson who is not running again.