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There will be a major overhaul at Regina’s City Hall, with eight new council members voted in on Wednesday in the city’s municipal election.
No wards were acclaimed, and six members of the previous council had decided not to run for re-election.
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One of the new faces at city hall will be Shobna Radons (1522 votes), who defeated incumbent Terina Nelson (1344 votes) in Ward 7.
“It’s surreal and it’s exciting,” Radons said over the phone immediately after the election.
Radons also ran in 2020 when Nelson was elected. She said the work put in between then and now finally paid off.
Shobna Radons (submitted)
Radons said she was motivated to run by what she viewed as a lack of professionalism at city hall and wanted to set a good example.
“It was one of the number one things for most of the people that I spoke with.”
She said voters also raised concerns about safety, roads and homelessness.
Radons and Victoria Flores of Ward 6 are the first women of colour to serve on Regina City Council. Flores won Ward 6 with 1532 votes ahead of Glenn Douglas’ 803.
Radons said there’ll be a bit of a learning curve, but she’s up to the challenge.
“I am just ready to work. Ready to work with new councillors, returning councillors and hopefully we can all work collaboratively for the betterment of our city,” she said.
Another new councillor is former Saskatchewan Roughrider Dan Rashovich, who won a close race in Ward 1, securing 2286 votes to former NDP MLA Joanne Crawford’s 2251.
“A lot of us will be new, a lot of us will be learning together so there’s definitely some positives there,” he said.
“There’s two incumbents there, and hopefully they can show us the ropes as well.”
Dan Rashovich (submitted)
Rashovich said outgoing councillor Cheryl Stadnichuk, who opted not to run for re-election, reached out to him saying she’d be available to offer any advice she could about the job.
Rashovich envisions being part of a group of professionals and addressing matters like infrastructure and homelessness.
From door-knocking, he says Ward 1 residents have voiced concerns about building multi-storey homes in the area in support of housing densification plans.
Rashovich said it’s fine for councillors to have different viewpoints but hopes they are able to find common ground and compromise.
“Just like any sports team, if (everyone on the team) could be one per cent better that’s the difference between being average and being a championship team,” Rashovich said.
“It’s not just the councillors and the mayor, but maybe the city as a whole in terms of everybody that works for the city.”
Ward 9 Coun. Jason Mancinelli finds himself in the role of a senior figure at council along with Ward 8 Coun. Shanon Zachidniak. They are the only councillors from the last term.
“I think that I’m going to be a fairly busy councillor for a bit,” he said.
“That is a lot of new blood in the room and I’m by no means a teacher of this, but having to lend a little bit of history and just some backstory to how procedures work; or how they work from layman’s terms; or how we got to this point on some different points in policy or planning – I think comes with that responsibility,” he said.
Mancinelli said he would do his best to lend a helping hand to the new councillors and help brief them on past initiatives and policies without trying to sway them in a particular direction.
Mancinelli said he was paying it forward, as that was what former councillor Mike O’Donnell did for him.
“He was very good at relaying events in an unbiased fashion so people understood the depth of the decision they were faced with instead of trying to slight them in one direction or another,” Mancinelli said.
“Being one of the senior guys, I think I have to try my best to follow his example and bring the same kind of knowledge forth so we can serve the city well.”
He said he was excited to work with new councillors as he found the last term quite difficult.
“Last term, I think people were busy trying to follow their own goals instead of trying to align with the policy that was coming at hand,” he said.
“I hope this time, we all deal with things that come at us instead of steering things in our own direction so much. I hope we work better as a group.”
Returning Officer Jim Nicol insists Elections Regina did everything it could to make voting convenient. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
Two weeks of training for councillors
The work isn’t over for the new crop of faces around the city council table — after they are sworn in on Monday, they’ll undergo two weeks of training, according to city clerk Jim Nicol.
In the first week, Nicol said he’ll take them through governance and procedural matters in city politics.
“So that they understand their roles, their legal authorities etc., and as well as understanding that when they get into the chambers in a formal setting this is how things operate, this is how they do things, this is how things get done,” said Nicol.
The following week, the city manager will take the councillors through administrative and financial details.
“How does the budget get prepared, what are the component parts of the budget, do people understand that there’s operations, there’s capital, that the utility operates separately,” Nicol explained.
Nicol said the sessions are open to all members, including the returning councillors, and he thinks it’s good for everyone to attend as a refresher and to build a collegial team.
Administration will also have its own work to do. Nicol said he and others will put together a list of outstanding issues from the previous council to see if the new councillors want to continue on with them — particularly if a motion was brought by a councillor who is no longer in the seat.
“We are going to provide an opportunity to focus on things and say ‘do you want admin to be spending time on these, do you want to take up your meeting time on something that maybe is no longer important,’” said Nicol.
The councillors will also have to work out a meeting schedule between them for the coming year, and get ready for municipal budget deliberations. These would usually take place in December, but are expected to happen in March, 2025 to give the new councillors time to get up to speed.
– With files from 980 CJME’s Lisa Schick
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