(Image credit: CFJC Today/File photo).

By Zachary Stewart-Q101

Merritt Election

Merritt Mayor Linda Brown to run for re-election

Jun 23, 2022 | 6:07 AM

MERRITT, B.C. — Mayor Linda Brown announced her intentions to run for re-election in Merritt’s upcoming 2022 municipal election.

When asked what she wants to focus on during her campaign for the election, Brown said she feels like she has unfinished business to take care of within the community.

“I’m still not ready to just give it all up. I’m prepared to continue working towards getting our citizens back, getting our infrastructure fixed, and moving forward. I don’t want to leave without that being done at this point,” Brown said.

Brown believes she is ready to learn and continue to grow as the mayor of Merritt after going through the floods of 2021.

“We are not under that same stress load at this point, and I think there’s a couple of things,” she said. “I do have the ability to be critiqued and I can sit and talk with anybody, sitting and talking with somebody doesn’t necessarily mean I will agree with everything they say either, but I can take criticism and I’m open to criticism. I can learn to change, and I can learn to do things differently.”

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With that being said, Brown has removed herself off of all social media as the criticism is something she can take and wants to improve on, but she said the hateful comments got to her.

“The nasty comments that came out were something I could not handle very well,” Brown said. “They just got to me and didn’t help me, they just made me freeze. I was in a situation where I was overloaded and overwhelmed. Regardless of that I should have gone out and had some communication, but I was frozen. It wasn’t something that I could just overcome. I have not participated with social media, and I think I’m better for it.”

Brown’s plan was to run for mayor again, but it was not her original plan to announce it this early. After a false report from another media outlet, she felt like she had no other choice.

One of the reasons Brown was going to wait to publicize her desire to run again was due to her summertime commitments with the city. That is something she is still planning to get done as she said she will push off her campaigning until closer to the election.

“I’m ready to run in October,” she said. “The campaign period is for the month of September and part of October; I’m prepared to campaign at that time. I’m not ready to campaign now. I’ve got too much work to do with the city, so I’m declaring because it’s already been declared that I’m not running but that’s just not true. I’m hoping I’m not expected to campaign for July and August because I’m going to be taking a step back from that and continue to work on city issues.”

So far, Brown is the first person to publicly say they will be running for mayor in the 2022 municipal election.

The election takes place on Oct. 15.