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First name put forward in Lantzville byelection race

NANAIMO – The nomination period for the Lantzville byelection closes Friday (July 3).

Doug Parkhurst will take a second-swing at a seat on Lantzville council.

Parkhurst is the first to announce his candidacy in Lantzville’s byelection since the nomination period opened Tuesday.

Lantzville residents will head to the polls Aug. 8 to fill four seats left vacant by politicians who resigned in the spring.

Trudy Coates, chief election officer, says she has seen at least 16 nomination packages picked up in the past two weeks, although Parkhurst is the first to hand in the paperwork.

The candidate, who came second-to-last in the polls during November’s general election, said the reasoning to put his name in again came because like a lot of residents he was “quite dismayed that we’d gone though this little event where there's four people resigning. The council needs to get back to work and it needs four people to do that.”

He isn’t concerned about the council environment in the wake of recent resignations.

“I’m not that worried about my ability to work with these people and also I’ve been a business person for many decades now and you know, frankly, if you focus on trying to make things happen ... it’s amazing how often you can actually get past differences and personalities and really focus on achieving goals,” he said.

Parkhurst, a chartered professional accountant, will run on a campaign of water, taxes and transparency.

Candidate hopefuls have until 4 p.m. Friday (July 3) to hand-in their papers.

The byelection is Aug. 8 with advanced voting on July 29 and Aug. 5.