Saskatoon's 2020 mayoral election is now a 5-way race

Get ready for some crowded debate nights this fall.

Three more people saythey will run for mayor in Saskatoon's Nov. 9 municipal election, following similar announcements from Rob Norris and incumbent mayor Charlie Clark.

Cary Tarasoff

Outspoken city hall critic Cary Tarasoff (not to be confused with the city's top-paid bureaucrat, Kerry Tarasoff) confirmed his intentions Thursday, although he said he will not make his formal announcement until Friday.

"It's to the point where you can keep whining or you can either buck up and get going on things yourself and I believe that I've done enough homework," Tarasoff said.

Tarasoff, a self-employed planner and architectural technologist, is particularly concerned about the city's charging of offsite levees to developers. These levees help pay for arterial roads, interchanges and bridges, among other things, according to the city.

"They charge these levees to infill development so that they can build parks and things on the outside edges of the city, which have nothing related to it," Tarasoff said. "They're basically taking the money from the infill development to go further and further out to go the borders."

Tarasoff has prevously questioned the city's handling of apond near a school where a young student drowned on his first day of class in September 2017.

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Tarasoff said he would release his platform on his website Friday and that he won't be seeking political donations.

"At this time especially, in a pandemic, that's the wrong thing to be doing," he said.

Zubair Sheikh

Zubair Sheikh, a self-employed professional engineering consultant, confirmed his intention to run to the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix earlier this month.

Sheikh told CBC News this week that the mayor of Saskatoon needs to be a businessperson with a focus on projects that provide economic benefits.

Sheikh expressed skepticism about the estimated cost for a new downtown library. City council has already approved $67.5 million in borrowing by the Saskatoon Public Library board of trustees for the project.

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Sheikh said Saskatoon needs a theme park or similar development (like the West Edmonton mall) to attract year-round tourism.

Sheikh is also pledging no tax increases for the next four years.

"We are not seeing any significant change in this city," Sheikh said. "Things are very static and things are not moving in the right direction. I know maybe somebody would say, 'Oh, he has no political experience.' But I will tell you honestly, to run a city, we don't need any politicians."

Mark Zielke

Mark Zielke, who owns an online auto repair service and communications company, told CBC News last month that he too will run for mayor, but that he wouldn't formally announce his campaign until the end of summer.

"I'm not out there bringing my platform or even for that matter hassling Saskatoon voters at this time," he said this week. "I'm simply making them aware that everything is going to be ready to go."

Zielke has campaigned, however. His voicemail and his Twitter feed, which features posts of him posing at numerous Saskatoon business, both bear the slogan #mark4mayor.

And he has been critical of Norris.

"How does this display of self-promotion cure the issues of discrimination, homelessness, addictions or mental illnesses?" Zielke tweeted about one of Norri's campaign billboards.

Norris was not available for comment Thursday.

"Leadership is about transparency and it's about integrity and it's about accountability," Zielke said of his Twitter feed, adding that it's open to anybody.

"That's just another way that people can learn a little bit about me and my style, but also they can figure out kind of what I stand for."

The call for nominations launches on Sept. 22.