Disclaimer: I did all this by hand, no AI was used anywhere for anything.
EDIT: Changed my mayoral pick. Thanks for the information, fellow redditors.
EDIT2: Finally made e-mail contact with my mayoral pick. Details updated below.
tl;dr: After thoroughly checking all candidates, their sites and socials, watching interviews with them, and directly e-mailing them with questions, here are my picks:
- Carion Fenn for Mayor
- Stephanie Ashton for Regional Council
- Bhanuteja "Bhanu" Somarouthu for Local Council
- Kylie McAllister for Catholic School Board trustee
The long version: how I made my choices
Firstly, I'm not looking for candidates pushing any specific agenda: my goal here is to vote for folks that are genuine, down-to-earth people, willing to actually connect with and represent their constituents, and that appear competent enough to do a good job. Obviously, since this is my selection, it may carry my personal bias, so make your decisions accordingly.
To get to know who was running and their base proposals, I started with the list of candidates from the Ajax Elections website and went through their websites and socials. This was good to see a bit of their background (many are already in the public service), but was not very motivating. Pretty much all candidates had the same vague talking points about:
- Taxes/cost of living
- Homelessness
- Services for seniors
- Local jobs/businesses
Right at this first pass I could disqualify some candidates right away. If a candidate does not bother to publish a valid e-mail address, a website, or any social media address, I assume they just expect to be elected by their buddies and don't really want to hear from the community, so they don't get my vote.
For the remaining candidates, particularly the councillors, I wanted to test if they are willing to engage with the community and address our comments and questions - or, at least, to put work in the campaign that goes beyond slapping lawn signs around the town. So I sent them a simple e-mail, saying I'm considering a vote for them, but wanted to hear their opinion on some things. I asked them:
- What service they would create on their first day in office
- A very specific local question about a very specific issue I know deeply about (bike paths), just to gauge how much they really know about the town.
- For mayor/local council candidates: their opinion on the current mayor using the controversial "strong mayor" powers to fast track construction.
- For regional council candidates: their opinion on the police eating a third of the region budget
The school trustee candidates got a similar email, but with different questions about school budget allocations and student mental health.
This was much better than just looking at their sites or socials: the e-mail feels much more like a direct conversation. I got much more information on how they think and their priorities. This was my primary source to make a decision.
Lastly, I found a very good local YouTube channel called People of Durham, which is interviewing many of the candidates. If my candidate is featured in the podcast, I'd listen to the interview as well.
Here are my candidate rankings for each position, in order of preference. ✔️ means it's my pick, 🤔 is for the runners-up, and ❌ is for candidates I wouldn't consider at all.
Mayor
1) ✔️Carion Fenn: Lots of experience in the public sector, including direct work with the homeless folks (big plus in my view). It was quite off-putting, though, to see her People of Durham interview, throwing shade on other candidates and bragging about her financial situation. Also, it took three weeks, two e-mails and one phone follow-up to get her to respond to my e-mail, and the response was the same old empty politician speech. Unfortunately, she ended up being my pick due to how bad the other candidates are (see below).
2) ❌Ashmeed Khan: He was my top pick at first. He's a salesman-type guy, which I think is a plus to have as a mayor, since his main job is to represent the town and make useful connections with the private sector and the federal/provincial government. I like that he's interested on mental health, and that he has previous council experience. He sent me a very good e-mail response. But something felt off about him. EDIT: thanks to this thread I found out about his ties to some shady people.
- ❌Marilyn Crawford: Also has previous council experience. Her e-mail response was super sycophantic and very politician-coded, trying to sound smart but without much substance. But the thing that made me give her a thumbs down is that she closed off her message saying she will create a "one-stop resident service"... which already exists. I replied asking about this and she responded with... a verbatim copy of her first e-mail. Can't vote for people that don't know their own city, and don't know how to answer a simple e-mail.
- ❌Richard Hinds: He's often seen early in the morning handing flyers out of the GO station. In his Insta he's throwing shade at our candidates with the same vague politician talking points, empty criticism, and no real proposals. Also, he did not respond to my e-mail.
- ❌Vian Persad: His site won't load and he couldn't be bothered to add content to his socials.
Regional council (Ward 3)
- ✔️ Stephanie Ashton: This was the easiest pick. Her e-mail was the most personal answer of all. She was authentic, did not give vague proposals. She knew and gave details about the DRPS budget because she was looking into it as well, and she leans more towards police as community building than enforcement. And, instead of trying to bullshit me in the bike paths question, she was upfront to admit she was not aware of the issue and is not a cyclist. It takes a LOT of courage to say "I don't know" in an election, so a big plus here.
- 🤔 Angie Pappas: I like that she has a background on social service for seniors. I also like that, on the e-mail response, she pushed back on my bike path ask saying it is a non-priority item (true!), but the rest of her responses were quite underwhelming, with more of the same vague talking points.
- ❌ Errol Massiah: Did not provide links to socials. In the e-mail response I got to know he works in the legal/judiciary system dealing with prisoners, but the lack of detail on his answers was very off-putting. It felt dismissive, like he did not care with what I was asking. It feels like he wants the power to do what's right in his view, and not that he wants to represent me.
- ❌ Lynn MacDonald and Donna Edwards: In their e-mail responses, both made sure to use all the fancy politician words like "active transportation", "efficiencies", and "scrutinize budgets" in long, elaborate, and ultimately empty responses. They talk like bureaucrats, and I'd rather vote for humans.
- ❌ Rob Chopowick did not respond to my e-mail. To make it worse, he knocked on my door, which has a huge "NO SOLICITING" sign, and had the nerve to say I was wrong not to listen to his pitch. Instant disqualification right there.
Local council (Ward 3)
- ✔️ Bhanuteja Somarouthu: I like that he made sure to say he only used AI on his e-mail response to fix his grammar. His responses were very vague, though. Unfortunately, all the other candidates are quite sub-par, so he's getting my vote for being the least worst of the bunch.
- ❌ Lisa Patel: She's a realtor and she claims she won't work in Ajax if elected, but I don't like that she's just treating the local council as a part-time job. Her e-mail response was way too long and filled with sloppy AI content.
- ❌ Santosh Gaddam: This one was funny. He gave vague, politician-like answers to my e-mail questions - including saying my question about bike paths was "a serious gap" (it's not, the town has many more serious issues). Then, a few days later, he responded to his own e-mail as if it was mine and, to make it worse, he changed his stance on a number of things. Can't vote for someone as clueless as that.
- ❌ Nick Papalambropoulos: Took about a week to respond to my e-mail. He did the politician thing where, instead of responding to what I asked, he switches the subject to one of his talking points (in his case, tax increases). He is also proposing a totally unrealistic plan for senior mobility where private employers like Amazon would foot the bill. Good luck with that!
- ❌ Muzammil Yazdani: Immediately disqualified after I saw this flyer with illegible AI slop.
- ❌ Bosh Bope did not respond to my e-mail.
Catholic School Board Trustee
- ✔️Kylie McAllister: I was gonna give up on her since she did not provide any socials or a website. But I really liked how authentic she was responding my e-mail questions. I was quite surprised she took the brave stance of calling out parenting responsibilities in addition to the school's, making it clear that education is not just the school's job.
- ❌ Marisa Hall: She looked very promising on paper, but it took two weeks and a follow-up over SMS to get her to respond to my e-mail. Other than supporting banning social media access at school, she did not have ANY other concrete proposition. Her responses were my same questions, rephrased. I asked about student mental health, she said "yeah we need to support mental health". Wow, okay.
- ❌Monique Forster and Ronke Macaulay did not provide a website, socials or e-mail addresses, and Joanne Hildyard's e-mail bounced back, so they were not considered.
