And they're off!
The Burnaby election office has released the list of candidates that have put themselves forward as nominees for the upcoming municipal election.
There were a few surprises in the list, which was released after 4 p.m. this afternoon. Four candidates are vying for the top spot.
Mayor Derek Corrigan is running as the mayoral candidate with the Burnaby Citizens Association.
He is being challenged by Tom Tao, with TEAM Burnaby, and two independents - Sylvia Gung and Allen Hutton.
All the current city councillors - Colleen Jordan, Dan Johnston, Anne Kang, Nick Volkow, Pietro Calendino, Sav Dhaliwal, Richard Chang, and Paul McDonnell - are running for council again with the BCA.
The current BCA school trustees running again are Larry Hayes, chair of the board; Baljinder Narang, vice-chair of the board; Ron Burton; James Wang; and Gary Wong.
Trustees Tony Coccia and Diana Mumford chose not to run for the board again in the upcoming election.
Harman Pandher and Meiling Chia are running to replace them under the BCA banner.
The TEAM Burnaby council candidates are former Burnaby councillors Garth Evans and Lee Rankin, retired RCMP officer Ray Power, local real estate agent Jeffrey Chiu, businessman Jim Favaro, real estate agent Lotus Chung, community and sports volunteer June Jeffries and urban planner Graham Murchie.
Murchie has stepped down as TEAM Burnaby president to run for council.
TEAM Burnaby's school trustee hopefuls are Bonda Bitzer, Alex Hui, Jeff Kuah, Rennie Maierle, Glen Power, Pablo Su and Anne Sharleen Sylva.
The Burnaby Municipal Greens council candidates are Carrie McLaren, who was most recently the Green candidate for Burnaby-New Westminster in the 2011 federal election; Adrienne Merlo, who ran for the Green party for Burnaby-Douglas in the federal election; Rick McGowan, a New Westminster teacher, and Matthew Stuart, a Burnaby resident who recently started Training Wheels Farm in Surrey,
Scott Janzen, who ran for the Green Party for Burnaby-New Westminster in the federal 2006 election, and former Burnaby school trustee Helen Chang are running for school board spots with the Greens.
Parents' Voice is putting forward five school board candidates - Homara Ahmad, Charter Lau, Helen Ward, Gordon World and Long Xue.
Nick Akvenich is running as an independent for council.
Burnaby residents will be electing a mayor, eight councillors and seven school trustees in the election, which takes place on Saturday, Nov. 19.
The election ballot will also include community opinion questions on proposed park dedications in the city.
The candidate nomination period ended today, Oct. 14, at 4 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 18 is the deadline for challenging nominations, and Friday, Oct. 21 is the deadline for withdrawing as a candidate, according to the candidate information package provided by the city's election office.
