Election buzz

Action in Beaconsfield has been building since the beginning of the year, first with Hela Labene declaring her candidacy for mayor, then councillor David Pollock announcing he will also take a run at the incumbent, Mayor Bob Benedetti. Following that, three executive members of the Beaconsfield Citizens Association (BCA) resigned from the council watchdog group to run for city council, throwing their support behind Pollock. Benedetti is being backed by three incumbent councillors running for re-election but two others that are not seeking re-election are backing Pollock, so a city council, in midst of a of blue-collar strike, is a house divided heading into the election. Officially, everyone is running as independent but unofficial slates are forming behind each mayoral option. With three former BCA members backing Pollock, some of Benedetti’s supporters are not too keen to see the group, whose former president Karin Essen butted heads with the mayor regularly over the past three years, host an all-candidates debate. Hopefully, the matter can be worked out because this is one municipal election that is begging for a debate. If this build-up doesn’t entice more than 40 per cent of Beaconsfield voters to show up Nov. 1, nothing ever will.

In the two local City of Montreal boroughs, namely Pierrefonds/Roxboro and Ile Bizard/Ste. Genevieve, Mayor Gerald Tremblay’s team is ready to roll, all of them being incumbents except for Jim Beis, whose candidacy was declared months ago. Despite the scandals plaguing the Tremblay administration downtown, his main political rivals have done little to attract interest from voters in the two West Island boroughs. With the campaign official underway last Friday, and in reality in motion since early summer, neither Vision Montreal nor Project Montreal have their West Island slates in place and therefore haven’t made any inroads in boroughs were Tremblay’s party has trounced his opponents in previous elections. Therefore, they will need more than luck to get someone elected. Former Pierrefonds city councillor Michael Labelle has been talking about running a slate for his new borough-only party but nothing has been made official, yet.

Longtime Ste. Anne de Bellevue Mayor Bill Tireney found out this past week he is being challenged by former firefighter Francis Deroo.

Meanwhile, in other West Island cities, new candidates are starting to trickle in who aim to challenge some incumbents or replace longtime councillors not seeking re-election but the urgency is not there just yet, compared to Beaconsfield and Ste. Anne where mayoral races are confirmed.