Four candidates are vying for the top job in Côté-des-Neiges/NDG, the largest borough in Montreal.
All borough mayoral candidates are promising to make cleaning up city hall and eliminating corruption from the contract awarding process in the construction industry as their top priority.
The borough is home to more than 165,000 residents, making almost it like a city on its own.
The issue of corruption here has become very personal with the more than 95,000 eligible voters.
Their favourite local boy, Michael Applebaum, was arrested earlier this year on charges of corruption.
Applebaum was the former mayor of CDN-NDG, before getting elected mayor of Montreal by city council and subsequently forced to resign to fight the criminal charges.
But other issues such as improving public transit services, building better roads and revitalizing impoverished districts rank high with voters’ priorities.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m driving on third world streets,” one woman said.
The borough is a mix of tenants and home owners of varying income levels.
Côte-des-Neiges is home to thousands of renters, while NDG boasts a lot of home owners.
Keeping a lid on property taxes also ranks high in this voting district.
Home values increased by more than 24 per cent in the last valuation role for single family houses, three per cent higher than Montreal.
The average municipal value for a single family home in this borough is more than $630,000.
Here is a list of the candidates for borough mayor:
- Michael Simkin (Projet Montreal)
- Andrew Ross (Équipe Mélanie Joly)
- Russell Copeman (Équipe Marcel Côté)
- Kevin Copps (Équipe Coderre)
Voters go to the polls Nov. 3.
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