By Sheri Monk

Craig Tondevold will serve a third term as the mayor of Leader–there were no other nominees for the town’s top job. Despite the acclamation, there will still be an election race at Leader as eight candidates compete for six councillor positions.

Councillors Bill Clary and Jim Cocks are not seeking re-election after serving just one term. Councillors Jo-Ann Tetlock, Albert Heck, Calvin Bachmeier and Gary Meier are each pursuing a third term in public office.
Four new candidates have entered the race for councillor. They are Sarah Andreas, Jason Hodge, Charlotte Albrecht and Jeff Cunningham.
According to Tondevold, the town of Leader has grown over the past three years, even sustaining new development through the current recession–one of the worst in recent history.
“We’ve had a lot of construction over the past three years here, a lot of money and permits being leant out. We’ve been pretty steady and if not we’ve increased a little bit. There seems to be a lot of young ones that left 10 years ago are coming back now,” Tondevold explained. “We’re really happy to see that.”
While not an unfamiliar problem, Leader’s mayor believes aging infrastructure will continue to be an issue through his next term.
“The continued replacement of infrastructure is big, big, big,” said Tondevold.
Over the past three years, the town council initiated programs to replace and upgrade water and sewer lines, as evidenced by work being undertaken currently at First Street East. However, the upgrading process is slow and costly.
“The program we have in place now, it’ll take 30 years to put it through if we don’t accelerate it somehow. That’s one of the biggest issues,” Tondevold said.
Leader’s council will change, but the new government will continue to progress with a plan to build a regional landfill – work started by the current administration. Another greener project on the go may be implemented in the spring of 2010.
“Next year we are going to start a nursery for some new trees for boulevards and at the same time I would like to put in a community orchard. This is one of my things I want to do in the spring, one of my initiatives,” explained Tondevold.
The nursery will help to replace some of the town’s Siberian elm trees which the mayor says irritate many residents because of the species’ prolific leaves and seeds. Tondevold said a location has already been scouted for the project.
“It will be located just by the lagoons on the corner of town here, at the southwest corner of town there’s two lagoon cells there. Just to the west, there’s property there that’s open so we’ll plant there and probably water off the lagoons,” he explained.
Tondevold, who has also served as a councillor for three terms, clearly enjoys municipal politics.
“It’s just nice to deal with the administration of the town–the people, the neighbors–it’s a neighbor thing, it’s a community thing and it’s just really nice to deal with that.”