Terrace Mayor Carol Leclerc set to be the latest municipal leader to step away from politics

After 17 years of service in
Terrace municipal politics
Mayor Carol Leclerc will
step aside follow the Oct vote

Long serving Terrace council member and two term Mayor Carol Leclerc has announced that she won't be running for re-election when Terrace voters next cast a ballot for municipal council in the fall.

The popular local figure shared her decision with the Terrace Standard over the weekend.

With seventeen years of service to her community Ms. Leclerc has been the face for the Terrace community on the provincial stage for close to two decades. 

Among some of her accomplishments in recent years was to help steer the community focused transportation network of municipal bus service along the Highway 16 corridor, that helped to fill some of the gap created by the departure of Greyhound.

Through her efforts, municipal governments from Terrace to points south and East worked together to align the service to help with community need, only Prince Rupert and Port Edward chose to not to participate in that initiative that was launched in 2017.

Ms. Leclerc was also an important partner to the formation of the Northwest BC Resource Benefits Alliance, that alliance has been advocating for a better share of funding from the province that comes from the Resources of the region.

The collective recently met with Municipal Affairs Minister Nathan Cullen to seek an update on their efforts.

Most recently, the Terrace Mayor has been the point person trying to gain the ear of the province on the issue of crime in her community, taking the message of a frustrated population about the nature of prolific offenders who continue to be released to offend again.

Her work on the file gained the support of the North Central Local Government Association, but so far the only impact on Victoria has been to create another study into the issue.

A look at some of the many activities that Ms. Leclerc has taken on during her time in both civic politician and community service is available from her biography page on the City of Terrace website.

Other Terrace municipal politicians to indicate their plans are Evan Ramsay who will not be seeking re-election, while Sean Bujtas and Dave Gordon both plan to run in the fall vote. James Cordeiro, Brian Downie and Lynne Christiansen have yet to indicate whether they will run for office again or not.

Two of the seven current members of Prince Rupert City
Council have announced that they won't be running
in the October fall municipal election

The Terrace Mayor's announcement comes a few months after similar announcements from Prince Rupert, with both Mayor Lee Brain and Councillor Blair Mirau advising their supporters that they would not be seeking another term of office in the October 2022 municipal election.

The 2022 race for the Mayoralty will be wide open, as Lee Brain announces that he will Not run for re-election 

Blair Mirau to step away from municipal politics at end of term

So far, they are the only two council members to share their intentions towards the fall 2022 vote that is set for October 15th.

For more notes on the work of Ms. Leclerc at Terrace Council see our archive here.

For themes on Prince Rupert Municipal governance see our archive page here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.