ward 4 coun. lori bresciani announces bid for regina mayor
first elected in 2016, bresciani is stepping away from city council to run for the top job in city hall.
sep 17 2024
4 minute read
ward 4 city councillor lori bresciani announces her mayoral campaign for the upcoming regina municipal election at the conexus arts centre on tuesday, september 17, 2024 in regina.
kayle neis
/
regina leader-post
two-term city councillor lori bresciani hopes to exchange one hat for another by making a run for the top spot in henry baker hall.
currently representing ward 4, bresciani held a campaign launch event on tuesday to officially declare her intention to run for mayor of regina in the nov. 13 municipal election.
seated between banners with the slogans “from nonsense to common sense” and “refocus regina,” bresciani promised affordability for taxpayers and to “hold administration fiscally responsible.”
“it is not because i don’t want the job as councillor of ward 4; it is because i see a gap in what the whole city needs,” she said.
bresciani joins a race that already features six other candidates, including incumbent mayor sandra masters, who is seeking a second term.
bill pratt announced his candidacy last week, following first-time political hopefuls brandon abtosway, shawn sparvier and kevin kardash. chad bachynski, a mechanical engineer and manager at saskenergy with ties to the construction sector, also announced plans to run for mayor in a news release on tuesday.
“as your mayor, i will lead — not manage — the team at city hall,” bresciani told media after her speech at the conexus arts centre. “in reflection of these last four years, i would say that there’s some things that i want to do differently.
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“we’ve seen a lot of things in the chambers that i would never allow to happen with respect to speaking to councillors, to each other, to the public and to our administration. i think my leadership style is different, and it is my promise to be collaborative.”
bresciani addressed the major pillars of her campaign by pointing to the city’s increased debt limit and slate of large capital projects driving the need for more spending room. it will be her priority to stop allowing any further debt for megaprojects and to curb “ overpromising, overspending and confusing priorities” by city council, she said.
answering to her own involvement in those spending decisions as a sitting councillor for the last eight years, bresciani said she has always voted to be “prudent with tax dollars.”
“throughout my whole terms, i’ve stood strong against major increases,” she said. “i’m not a spender, and we have to be accountable for the tax dollar.”
bresciani was first elected in 2016 and acclaimed in 2020 as the only candidate for ward 4.
she currently serves on the board of police commissioners and the city’s accessibility advisory committee. bresciani is also co-chair of the planning committee for frost regina, a non-voting member on the interim board of directors for the regina exhibition association limited (real), and serves on the board of the saskatchewan urban municipalities association.
she has family ties to the development community through her son josh bresciani and the winchester group, a commercial developer that just expanded into residential with an apartment project in douglas park.
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lori bresciani voluntarily recused herself from that discussion at council and from past items regarding the federal housing accelerator fund, but she did vote on later changes to the city’s development fees policy.
if elected mayor, “i will continue to recuse myself, even if there’s a perception” of conflict of interest in development-related issues, she promised.
bresciani feels she can still be “a hundred per cent” effective in the mayor’s office with such constraints.
“i’ve got a deputy mayor. i’ve got 10 other councillors who can make those decisions,” she said. “i don’t have to be the only one.”
bresciani said she has no large campaign backers and pledged to not take election donations from developers or “anybody that i think is going to have an influence in council.”
“i will not do that,” she said. “i’ve seen that in this last term and it’s wrong. it’s a conflict of interest.”
bresciani also promised to: repair the reputational damage of the flopped experience regina campaign, explore ways to draw more people to live downtown as a way of reviving the area after hours, and petition for the municipal election cycle to be moved from fall to spring to avoid overlap with provincial elections.
by throwing her hat in the ring for mayor, bresciani gives up any possibility of returning to her council position in this cycle because candidates can’t campaign for more than one elected position at a time. that leaves an opening for the five candidates who’ve declared intentions to run in ward 4: charles umeh, kofo oni, deb nyczai, glen geiger and balvir bhathal.
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the formal nomination period runs from sept. 25 to oct. 9.
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