One month into the election cycle and we have little to go on as to the direction of the electorate in Cobourg. Checking the official website here we find one candidate for mayor one for Deputy and seven for five Councillor positions. Only Brian Darling, of the incumbents, has failed to file. He told me last week he is still getting signatures. He only needs twenty-five so he is really slow or he can’t find enough friends yet. Four new people so far, well two not so new Randy Curtis and Mark Mills have been on the ballot before – unsuccessfully but maybe this time will be be better.

The ‘Official’ race for  for Mayor is no contest yet as the current mayor has yet to file and his website is still not active. He insists that he will be a candidate but dithers about filing. Perhaps he is waiting for the appointment that is rumoured – that he will be appointed the CAO of the County when Doug Ford gets around to reorganising the County Governance structure – but that’s all speculation from unknown sources. Meanwhile checking Nicole’s website we find that it is down. The official answer to that was that “The website was moving and the password entry was part of the process”.

Adam Bureau filed for the Deputy Mayor’s slot and stands alone so far, again it will be a battle for the votes between the “Three B” haters that populate the Cobourg News comment board and his huge Facebook following. Despite the hiring of the new Police Chief, and his recent chequered  past that situation doesn’t seem to have legs.

On to the Councillors position we have three of the present incumbents filing – Burchat, Barber and Mutton, along with four new people – Randy Curtis, Alexander Cahill, Joel Scott and Cindy Beman. Two of those have had a public presence – Curtis and Scott, the other two will have to really work to get a profile. Only two of the filers have their acts together, and what we mean by that is that in this day and age if you don’t have a complete package to present (website and email address) when you file it is hard to play catch-up. Joel Scott and Cindy Beman have done that and their sites are impressive and professional. One thing we did notice is that both of those websites do not list phone numbers. So personal contact will be limited to email and will the candidates really be answering the emails or will it be fobbed off to a campaign worker? 

So first impressions:

• When will the Mayor and Mark Mills file – big splashes but no official landing
• The big name so far is Joel Scott, with an impressive Community background
• Cindy Beman and Alexander Cahill will have a busy Summer getting their names out and creating public personas
• Is not publishing a phone number going to be a campaign trend?

Final word – get involved, file quickly and start pounding on doors – name recognition will not work alone!