COURTENAY, B.C. – The 2018 municipal election is less than a week away, and candidates are in the final stretch of their campaigning.
Courtenay mayoral candidate Bob Wells has run into a bit of an issue.
Wells posted an update to his campaign’s Facebook page on Sunday morning, stating that another candidate’s door knocker was telling people that he was no longer running for the mayor’s seat.
He said that is not true, and he is in fact still running for the position.
Wells said east Courtenay residents informed him that it was someone from current mayor Larry Jangula’s campaign team.
“It was a bit disturbing, and I’ve known Larry for many years. It’s not something that I thought would be intentional,” Wells told the MyComoxValleyNow.com newsroom.
“I’ve reached out to him and he confirmed to me Friday that it wasn’t something he had any knowledge of, but he would try to track it down. I’m just waiting to find out who that person was that was knocking on doors.”
Wells said he’s since gone to the neighbourhood where the incident was alleged to occur, and informed voters that he is still running.
“Last night (Saturday), I had a few people that said you may want to just post (an update) and make sure this isn’t happening anywhere else. I’m just waiting to hear back from Larry and see what his comments are on it,” he said.
Wells maintained that he’s very excited about next weekend’s vote.
“I’ve been door knocking, going to a lot of different events,” he said.
“This is unfortunately a bit of a distraction, but hopefully it all gets cleared up as quick as possible. But it’s been a great experience, the people of Courtenay are always warm and inviting when we knock on their doors and the support has been great, so I just appreciate everybody.”
LARRY JANGULA RESPONDS
The MyComoxValleyNow.com newsroom reached out to Jangula.
The current city mayor said he believes the particular door knockers were an older couple that misunderstood a question from a resident.
“They probably were referring to David Frisch with withdrawing,” he said.
Courtenay councillor David Frisch had been in the running for the mayor’s seat but withdrew to pursue another term as a councillor.
“There was certainly no plan to do something stupid like that,” Jangula said, referring to the alleged Wells rumours.
“If it’s the gentleman (door knocker), English is not his first language, he may have gotten confused. I’m not saying he did or didn’t, but I’m looking into it and waiting for an answer back from them.”
General voting day is set for Saturday, October 20th.
