Incumbent Mayor Sue McKortoff spends her time visiting community events, sitting on local and regional boards, attending meetings, dealing with citizens and volunteering. (Richard McGuire photo)

It’s a blustery, chilly day at the final Market on Main of the year and Mayor Sue McKortoff is doing her rounds.

She always shows up around 11 a.m., one of the merchants tells us.

McKortoff chats with the vendors and makes a few small purchases.

She makes a point of coming each week, she says, because she’s a strong supporter of the local farmers’ and crafters’ market.

For McKortoff, a widow and empty nester, the Osoyoos community and volunteering are her life.

A retired teacher, it sometimes seems she’s taught most of the people in town who attended school here between 1968 and her retirement in 2002. And in her 50 years in Osoyoos, she’s come to know many others.

“I’m very happy to run again as the mayor,” she said. “I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my seven years on council, three years as a counsellor and four years as the mayor. I’m not finished dealing with all of the issues in town yet.”

This time McKortoff faces only one opponent – Doug “Stone Dan” Pederson, whose campaign is based entirely around promoting marijuana.

In the 2014 election, she beat Pederson with 1,285 votes to his 54. But she refuses to take this election for granted and she’s campaigning hard.

“I’m sure there are lots of people who would support me, but I think that Doug Pederson seems to be known in the community, and I’m sure there might be some people who would prefer his point of view to mine,” she said. “So I hope this is a shoe-in, but I don’t want to guarantee that. Not at all.”

Still, it’s hard to imagine that her non-stop attendance at community events and tireless volunteering for such groups as the Osoyoos Festival Society haven’t earned her a large loyal following.

“I think it’s also really important to have some continuity on council,” she said. “And so I think it’s necessary for me to continue on with learning and with providing people of this town, which I love, with the best possible solutions to a lot of their problems. So I’m looking forward to it.”

Among the projects she wants to continue with are developing affordable housing, finding a community use for some land that was donated in the Cottonwood area, town centre revitalization and improving community access to health care. There’s also the challenge of an aging town hall.

She’s involved with water and lake issues, staying informed on potential problems like the threat of zebra and quagga mussels and she sits on several boards in her role as mayor.

“I’m willing to put in the time,” she said. “I’m willing to listen on the issues. And I’m willing to deal with things. I think the fact that I have a background in this, that I’ve been involved really heavily for the last four years will help me to continue to do this.”

After leaving the market, McKortoff stops by Gyro Park to check out Ribfest before going to her next community event – a lunch at the Osoyoos Senior Centre to honour that group’s volunteers.

“I appreciate the fact that the senior centre runs so well with so many volunteers,” she tells them. “As you know, I think volunteers are the lifeblood of our community. They walk on water. I said that to a minister once and thought, ‘gee, that probably wasn’t the best thing to say.’ But anyway he laughed, so I think volunteers are absolutely terrific and I know that all of you are very strong volunteers in the town of Osoyoos as well.”

McKortoff is always well dressed, and she sometimes comes across as a prim schoolmarm. She asks a reporter not to film her cautiously sipping a single glass of wine at the seniors’ event. But soon a hearty, infectious laugh shatters that stern image.

Heaven help the reporter who crosses her boundary by asking a nosy question like how old she is.

“No! No! You don’t ask a lady how old she is,” she retorts. “I’m not answering that. You can figure it out, I’m sure, but I don’t think that’s an appropriate question.”

The math puts her a little over age 70.

In her childhood, McKortoff lived for a short time in Toronto and Calgary, but she spent most of her younger years in Vancouver, attending high school and university there.

McKortoff warns against electing an all-rookie council, pointing to the time it takes for council members to learn their roles.

“I certainly hope that we have some other people who have been on council before, that will be returning and have an idea,” she said. “Because otherwise, if you have all members of council that are new, it takes a while to come up to speed because it’s a huge learning curve and we continue to learn.”

Back at the senior centre, McKortoff praises them for the role they play both with local seniors and the many snowbirds who come in the winter. She finds common cause with them.

“I’m a volunteer as well, which is why I got involved in the business that I’m in,” she told the senior volunteers. “Because you have to be kind of a volunteer and you can’t depend on it for the money. So that’s why I do it and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.”

RICHARD McGUIRE

Osoyoos Times