Community First New West will be fielding a candidate in February’s school board by-election - hoping to fill a seat held by one of its former members.
A by-election has been scheduled for Feb. 3, 2024 to fill the seat vacated by former trustee Dee Beattie, who resigned in September – three months after admitting to have trolled parents and other community members on Twitter using a fake “Allan Whitterstone” account.
Community First New West candidates – including Beattie – won six of the seven seats on the school board in the October 2022 local election.
James Richardson, vice president of Community First New West, told the Record the group will be running a candidate in the by-election. He said one candidate had declared their intention to seek the nomination so far, with the selection to be made at a Dec. 6 nomination meeting.
To date, three candidates have publicly stated they’ll be running in the upcoming by-election: Kathleen Carlsen of the New West Progressives, who ran in the 2022 election and was less than 40 votes shy of the final seat on the board; Alejandro Diaz, an independent who previously ran in the 2018 school board election; and Shawn Sorensen, an independent making his first run for a seat on the board.
At its Nov. 20 meeting, council approved the appointment of Mark Brown as the chief election officer and Kelly Wharton as deputy chief election officer.
