Photo: Sarah Chan (left) and her husband, Mayor Don Iveson (right), at Nomination Day at Edmonton City Hall.

Dedicated citizens across Alberta gathered this morning in town halls and community centres to submit their nomination forms to become official candidates in this year’s municipal elections. In Edmonton, 132 candidates and their supporters stood in a line stretching through City Hall’s grand atrium in order to file their papers and officially start their bids for election.

For Edmonton, this represents a record number of candidates running for Mayor, City Council and the city’s two school boards.

Over the past year, I have maintained a list of declared nomination candidates for Council and the Public and Catholic school boards. This list is now updated to reflect the names of the candidates approved to run in the October 16, 2017 municipal elections.

On this year’s ballots, Edmontonians will see a few familiar faces and the names of many first time candidates. Three long-time local politicians will not be on the ballot this year. Longtime councillors Bryan Anderson and Ed Gibbons, and one-term councillor Michael Oshry, have decided to not seek re-election.

I will delve deeper into the candidates and the issues facing voters in this election in the weeks ahead, but here are a few initial observations about Nomination Day:

By my count, 48 of the 132 candidates running in Edmonton’s municipal elections are women. 13 of the 20 candidates running for the Edmonton Catholic School District are women. 11 of 28 candidates running for the Edmonton Public School Board are women. 24 of 84 Mayoral and City Council candidates are women. Equal Voice has an excellent analysis of the gender balance in this election on their website, yegparity.ca.

Mayor Don Iveson is being challenged by 12 candidates. Most recognizable among the challengers is perennial candidate Don Koziak. Koziak has run in at least nine municipal and provincial elections since 1995, including the mayoral race in 2007 and briefly in 2010, and as the Wildrose Party candidate in Edmonton-Glenora in 2012 and 2015.

Edmonton Public School Trustee Michelle Draper was acclaimed in Ward B. She is the only candidate in Edmonton to be acclaimed in this election.

The most crowded City Council race is in Ward 4, where 13 candidates are running to replace retiring Councillor Ed Gibbons. The least crowded City Council race is in Ward 2, where incumbent Councillor Bev Esslinger is facing 2 challengers in her bid for re-election.

Here are a few of the photos from Nomination Day that I have posted on Flickr under Creative Commons licensing: