Get To Know Nelson's Council Candidates
By Nelson Daily Staff
The list of candidates vying to lead Nelson City Council more than tripled the number of seats available in chambers at 310 Ward Street after nominations closed.
The Nelson Daily understands the difficulty facing voters to learn more about what each individual candidate brings to the table.
Which is why leading up to the October 20 municipal election, The Nelson Daily has asked each candidate to explain why they should be one of the six councillors assigned with the task to lead Nelson for the next four years.
Today, The Nelson Daily readers hear from candidates Robin Cherbo, Michelle Hillaby and Charles Jeanes.
Other candidates on the ballot include, Bob Adams, Brittny Anderson, Laureen Baker, Robin Cherbo, Michelle Hillaby, Charles Jeanes, Robbie Kalabis, Rik Logtenberg, Janice Morrison, Keith Page, Leslie Payne, Joseph Reiner, Cal Renwick, Brian Shields, Margaret Stacey, Travis Hauck, Jesse Woodward, Rob Richchi and Stephanie Wiggins.
See Candidates Travis Hauck, Jesse Woodward and Rob Richchi
Robin Cherbo
I grew up in Creston and graduated from Prince Charles Secondary School in 1965. I first came to Nelson on the CPR passenger train in 1957 with my dad who worked for CPR in the deasil shop. We arrived at the CPR station which was still a fully functional passenger station.
After graduating at PCSS, I came to Nelson to attend Notre Dame University in 1966-1967. After I got a job with the Ministry of Transportation and Highways and worked on road projects until moving to Nelson in 1978.
In 2005, I was elected to Nelson City Council. We started with doing a water and sewer inventory and planned how to bring the infrastructure up to date over a period of years. Currently we have completed the majority of upgrades to the system. I started at that time pushing to update our City wide ‘no smoking’ by-law. So finally in the last few years we have upgraded it as the ‘Clean Air’ by-law by adding ‘vaping and cannabis’ to the regulations.
Along with that we introduced the ‘Eco-save’ energy reduction program and it has been a huge success for residents to upgrade homes to be more energy efficient reduces the carbon footprint of Nelson.
I furthermore promote the City Traffic Plan along with Baker Street infrastructure upgrades to ensure pedestrian safety and traffic flow. Support a proactive City ‘pedestrian by-law’ along with street outreach to reduce street conflicts and reduce homelessness. Also promote affordable housing and improved seniors home support services and long term care in our community.
Continue to supported plans to work with the Regional District of Central Kootenays to improve emergency management of fire mitigation and evacuation plans for the City.
I will also foster meaningful dialog with business and citizen through public meetings on projects in the City to have feedback both ways in decision making.
As well to work with new Councillors to help bring them up speed, as it is a large learning curve to start with to learn the roles and responsibilities as a City Councillor.
Michelle Hillaby
I’m Michelle Hillaby; thanks for taking a few minutes to read about CORE, and about why I’m running for Council.
I’m a busy single mom who works in sales in the dental industry. I’ve got two kids active in several sports in town, and I participate in a bunch of sports too.
When this council decided to reduce Little League hours at Lion’s Park, I was frustrated, annoyed, and angry. Combined with other concerns about the direction the City was heading, I decided that I couldn’t just sit back and complain. I needed to do something.
I’m running with CORE because their principles align with mine, and the candidates are a group of diverse people with different backgrounds, perspectives and views. We’re independent; CORE is simply here to help with the work of getting elected.
If you’d like to speak to me directly, head to www.votecore.com and send a message through, and I’ll get back to you!
Charles Jeanes
- born in Ontario, 1951, came west 1978.
- Lived in Nelson at same address since 1987.
- universities: Trent, Guelph, SFU, UBC.
- graduate degree, history, UofG
- teachers cert UBC
- journalism (College, Waterloo, ON)
- one child, two grandchildren.
Societies, boards, community activity [1987 to present]
- Nelson anti-poverty action group (NAPAG)
- Kootenay Center for a Sustainable Future (KCSF)
- Nelson University Center, NUCES [board, faculty, chair]
- NML Library Board
- Arts Council
- Nelson Museum
- David Thompson Student-Cultural Society DTCS [chair, board, committees]
- Kootenay coop radio KCR [chair, boards, committees, programmer]
- Learning in Retirement LIR, at Selkirk College [present instructor]
Housing that’s affordable for seniors and low-income-earners, is my only priority now. A Nelson Rental Covenant, to put wage-payers and rent-collectors together to negotiate a fair structure of wages and rents, is my aspiration. As Gandhi would say, “moral force” (ahimsa and satya) might work.
I’ve been more organized and conventional in past elections, and produced a lot of talk and paper addressed to “the issues.” Now, I only have an aspiration, to use the election process to talk about ideas and get them in front of the public. I am a voracious reader about the state of our region, province, country, and planet. I am an “intellectual” — which does not denote intelligence but means I like to think alone and feed my mind with reading and listening. Climate peril is on everyone’s mind. I suggest people take the time to listen to Charles Eisenstein’s podcast about “carbon-reductionism”, the solution on offer. It is a poor solution.
