The longtime critic of city hall said he wants to try to create change from the inside.
Cary Tarasoff held the first official media conference for his 2024 Saskatoon mayoral campaign on Thursday.
Speaking to a crowd of three people in H.S. Sears Park while his wife Sherry recorded his remarks, Tarasoff said the event was a chance to unveil some of his campaign’s platform.
“I’ve got, like, 50 things itemized and I’m going to keep adding more detail as I go,” he said, noting Thursday’s event would focus on a few of his proposals and that he’ll release more information on his campaign website.
He went on to cover about a dozen different items, including calls for term limits for civic politicians — two years for councillors and two years for mayors.
He also called for tighter campaign spending limits, noting mayoral campaigns in Saskatoon can spend well in excess of $200,000, while prospective mayors in Regina are limited to about $70,000.
Other ideas Tarasoff floated included creating a “project expediter” position at City Hall to help applicants move major projects through approval processes more quickly.
Noting the city has been unable to get the railways to agree to reroute tracks around Saskatoon, Tarasoff suggested his idea is at least “a conversation.”
Police continue to investigate Zoerb’s death as Saskatoon’s 11th homicide of 2024 and have not announced the arrest of any suspects thus far. Tarasoff said the death points to unsafe conditions in the Fairhaven neighbourhood since the arrival of a 106-bed emergency shelter facility operated by the Saskatoon Tribal Council.
He said if elected mayor, he’d work to close down the shelter, but acknowledged the province owns the building and pays for the STC to operate there.
Tarasoff suggested the city could put up land for a “purpose-built” shelter facility away from residential areas, with construction to be paid for by the province, but did not suggest a location.
Tarasoff served in the Canadian Forces in the 1980s before moving to Edmonton, where he graduated from the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology’s architectural program. He has since worked in mining, construction and development planning.
He has for years been a vocal critic of goings-on at City Hall, including several instances where he has publicly accused city staffers, elected officials and public figures of wrongdoing.
Asked how he’d succeed in a role that tends to rely on consensus and coalition-building, given the ongoing disagreements with people he’d presumably need to work with, Tarasoff listed various instances where he claimed he was in the right.
“These fights are there because we keep catching them lying, we keep catching them doing really unfortunate things that they shouldn’t be getting paid for and they don’t like it. I don’t care. I really don’t care,” he said.
Tarasoff is competing for the mayor’s chair with current Ward 6 Coun. Cynthia Block and Gord Wyant, who most recently served as a provincial government cabinet minister and served as a city councillor prior to that.
Asked about the contrast between his sparsely attended event and those of his competitors, who held campaign kick-offs featuring rooms packed with supporters, Tarasoff said he’s trying to do things differently.
“We’re having too many politicians that are really concerned about spending money and having good advertising, but they have no content,” he said.
Saskatoon residents will go to the polls Nov. 13 to vote for mayor, city council and school board positions.
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