A former two-time councillor and a former village administrator are expected to join Sayward council after a byelection the wake of the resignation of two council members this year.
Preliminary results from Saturday’s vote show Debbie Lee Coates and Jason Randall Johnson as the top-two finishers.
Of the 291 votes cast for five candidates that stood in the byelection, Coates recieved 116 and Johnson received 105.
Sayward is a village of about 350 people, between Campbell River and Port McNeill.
Coates, a retired Sayward Elementary School secretary, is returning to Sayward council for a third time. She was elected in 2008 and 2011 and has not run for a council seat since.
Johnson, who was Sayward’s chief administrative officer for about a year in 2022, told the Times Colonist he expects to be sworn in this summer after the village has an active corporate officer, as Sayward’s current chief administrative officer is on leave. “That role needs to get filled first before new candidates can be sworn in.”
Johnson said his first task as councillor is to ensure the municipality is properly staffed.
Work on Sayward’s sewers, drainage project, official community plan, bylaws and water system are all priorities, but “staffing stability is job number one,” he said. “We’ve got a few roles missing out of the village office.”
Johnson, who moved to Sayward about three years ago, works as the general manager for a Campbell River-area water-taxi company owned by the Homalco First Nation.
He also chairs the Sayward Futures Society, a non-profit that runs the village’s gift shop, gallery, and visitor centre.
“I’ve been pretty active in the community,” he said. “We’ve been here for about three years now and have no plans to go anywhere.”
He’s hoping council can work on increasing the village’s profile to bring in more tourists, businesses and services.
“Sayward is famous for all the wrong reasons right now,” Johnson said with a laugh.
Councillors for the village have frequently been at odds with each other and members of the community.
The two incoming councillors will bring the councillor count back to five after the resignations of Kohen Gilkin and Tom Tinsley.
Gilkin, 19, a first time councillor who topped the polls with 126 votes when he ran in the 2022 municipal election, cited what he described as dysfunction among councillors when he resigned in March.
Remaining Sayward council members failed to pass critical financial bylaws before a May 15 provincial deadline, becoming the first municipality in B.C. to submit their financial plans late under the Community Charter.
In May, the province appointed a provincial adviser, Brian Carruthers, to help navigate the situation.
