It was standing room only in Hanna last Thursday night at the United Conservative Party Constituency Association AGM.
Stan Solberg attended the meeting on May 24, and is now a director. He said the previous record for attendance was 80. President David Mohl said there were 313 voting members at the meeting, including a busload of interested members coming to the meeting.
The three candidates running to represent the party in the constituency come, the next election, were given the opportunity to address the meeting. This included incumbent Rick Strankman, Nate Horner, and Todd Pawsey.
Mohl said there was a good cross-section from a variety of political backgrounds, from in towns and the rural communities. He notes that much of the interest came from a younger crowd.
“The age on our board dropped immensely,” said Mohl. “I am excited, because they are young, reliable and definitely for open nominations.”
Mohl remained president, Richard Bailey is Secretary and Michelle Toews is Chief Financial Officer. Mohl said 23 of the 27 members of the board are new. Local representation of the board includes Solberg, Linda Fisher, Donna Vigar, and Lyle Rowe. Vice presidents will be appointed at a regular meeting.
A local nomination committee made up of Doug Jones, chair, Michelle Toews, Brad Slorstad, Brad Osadczuk, James Marshall, was appointed.
Mohl says the rules of the nomination process are set by the party, and he believes it will be a level playing field.
“When I came, all I said was ‘I don’t care if our MLA is running again, there is going to be open nominations. With a new party formed out of two parties … anybody should be able to run,” he said.
He said the local nomination committee sets the time frame, and encourages people to run. They will also look at things such as forums and polling stations.
“The party does all the vetting and the approvals. Once the nominations closes, if there is more than one candidate, they determine to run an election,” he said.
Mohl said the committee will be meeting in the near future to nail down the nomination details.
