Saskatoon sees first person enter race for mayor

Candidate enters Saskatoon mayoral race WATCH: Saskatoon officially has its first candidate for mayor for this fall's election.

Saskatoon has its first mayoral candidate.

Former candidate Cary Tarasoff announced his intentions to run in November’s civic election in an online video posted on Monday morning.

“Yes, it’s April Fool’s Day morning and I’m releasing this. Why? Because we’ve been a fool for seven and a half years,” he said.

“The taxpayers of Saskatoon are just a bottomless pit of money for endless projects that don’t really benefit your lives, do they?”

In 2020, Tarasoff finished fourth out of six candidates with less than 3,000 votes.

Mayor Charlie Clark had more than 27,000 votes on the ballot that year.

Since the 2020 election, Tarasoff has been a vocal critic of city hall, scowling into the camera in a series of online videos scrutinizing city spending and taking aim at the Saskatoon Tribal Council and its emergency wellness centre.

He could find a base of support from the group of residents in Fairhaven and the surrounding area that have campaigned against the shelter since it opened in their neighbourhood in 2022.

A survey commissioned by Saskatoon’s administration late last year showed homelessness as the top issue in the city, with crime and safety and road maintenance rounding out the top three.

It’s been an eventful year for the City of Saskatoon, with both the fire chief and police chief retiring, and Mayor Charlie Clark becoming the first sitting mayor to not seek re-election since Cliff Wright in 1988.

-With files from Keenan Sorokan