Marlon Zacharias has been elected mayor of the Town of Nipawin. (submitted/Marlon Zacharias)

By Susan McNeil

Nipawin mayor by-election

Zacharias elected mayor of Nipawin

Oct 19, 2023 | 11:41 AM

Nipawin’s new mayor is Marlon Zacharias, who will stay in office for the next year until the general election in 2024.

For Zacharias, the first order of business will be increasing the transparency and community trust in town hall, an issue he says he heard loud and clear from voters in the run-up to yesterday’s by-election.

“The biggest thing I want to start right away is basically re-building the foundation for trust in the council We’ve gone through a very recent period of turmoil, I guess, with everything that’s happened here,” he said.

“I want to re-build the trust in the community, to let them know we’re here to work for them.”

Zacharias was referring to the way in which the previous mayor, Rennie Harper, left the position she had held since 2016.

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Harper resigned right before council was to receive a report that concluded she had violated the town’s code of ethics in multiple ways.

The report, completed by an Alberta-based company, also found that council itself should have acted sooner on complaints from staff and the public.

Zacharias was one of three candidates for council and netted just over 50 per cent of the ballots with former fire chief Brian Starkell getting 456 votes to Zacharias’ 540.

Laura Nycholat got 72 of the 1068 ballots cast. Nipawin has an estimated 3,645 voters which means turnout was just under 30 per cent.

It is not Zacharias’ first attempt to win the mayor chair so he has had time to think about how he would approach the job.

“I definitely intend on being a much more public official. Attending various events. I’m also going to look at some outside ways to improve communication between the council and the community,” he said.

One of those things could be bringing back a monthly update with the local radio station, something that Dave Trann, the mayor before Harper, did regularly.

“Also making sure that the council themselves are going to be able to communicate openly and easily with the public when they are asked questions,” said Zacharias.

Outside of addressing the relationship between the council and the community, a prime focus for him is to plan and encourage growth in the community.

“We’ve seen a lot of years of kind of stagnant growth where there hasn’t been too much happening,” he said. “So I want to lay some groundwork and some policies and put some committees together where we can really go out and push for Nipawin’s economic growth.”

If the economic growth happens, that means the need for more housing, particularly affordable housing and he has also heard mentions of assisted living homes for seniors.

A recurring issue has been with crime rates, which town hall is limited in its ability to change.

“It’s not just Nipawin when it comes to crime, its everywhere right now but people were really concerned about what was happening in Nipawin right now, obviously it being their home,” said Zacharias.

“It’s the biggest concern for people right now but its also going to be the thing that’s the hardest thing for us as a council to handle on our own.”

He has spent some thinking of ways to work with the police to try to make the community safer for everyone.

The next regular meeting of Nipawin council is on Monday, October 23.

READ MORE: https://northeastnow.com/2023/10/12/mayoral-forum-held-in-nipawin-prior-to-upcoming-election/

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com