(Image credit: City of Williams Lake).

By Aaron Schulze

Municipal Election 2022

Four familiar faces challenging for Williams Lake mayoral seat

Sep 12, 2022 | 12:03 PM

WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. — The current mayor of Williams Lake is being challenged by his predecessor.

Ahead of nominations closing for B.C. municipal elections on Sept. 9, a list from CivicInfo BC shows four candidates for the mayor of Williams Lake: incumbent Walt Cobb, former mayor Kerry Cook, former councillor Surinderpal Rathor and current councillor Jason Ryll.

Cobb became Williams Lake’s mayor in 2014, dethroning Cook by 454 votes while edging out Rathor by 115. Cobb won re-election in 2018, defeating Rathor by a wider margin of 666 votes.

Cook successfully ran for mayor in 2008 and won re-election in 2011, defeating Cobb in the process. She did not run for Williams Lake office in 2018.

Rathor is running for mayor in the third consecutive election. He twice received the second-most votes for council with 1,900 in 2008 and 2,082 in 2011. However, his council election success did not transfer to his mayoral ambitions, as he was edged by Cobb in 2014, then lost by a wider margin in 2018.

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Ryll was elected to council in 2014, receiving the second-most votes with 1,789. He was re-elected in 2018 with 1,695 votes.

While Ryll’s council seat is guaranteed to be filled by an outsider, Williams Lake’s five other incumbents – Sheila Boehm, Ivan Bonnell, Marnie Brenner, Scott Nelson, and Craig Smith – will seek re-election.

Five outsiders are looking to get into council. The list is:

• Angie Delainey
• Joan Flaspohler
• Jazmyn Lyons
• Michael Moses
• John Pickford

Candidates have until Friday, Sept. 16 to withdraw their names from the ballot.

The B.C. municipal elections will take place Oct. 15, 2022.