Each week, more people are stepping forward to announce their intentions to run in the Oct. 16 election for town council and with the Labour Day weekend closing in a rash of formal announcements are expected this week.

It's just three weeks until the Sept. 18 nomination day and while the listing of registered potential candidates only stands at four, early indications are a long list of people are expected to be stepping forward for what could be a hard-fought election.

While they are adding finishing touches, two are already going hard.

No sooner had supplies arrived for current town councillor Morgan Nagel than they started to be distributed. He's got 11,000 door hangers, 200 lawn signs and seven large lawn signs, plus a whole bunch of candy for his entry in the Labour Day Parade.

He invited people to join his team in a social media post and immediately had over a dozen offer their services.

"I'm completely blown away with how many people have come forward and how hard they're working," says Nagel." I thought we'd better get going because there's so much territory to cover and they've already covered a third of the town."

Nagel wanted to kick it off sooner but instead started a little door knocking this past weekend and will cover as much territory as possible, pushing his slogan "Stand Up for Cochrane" and his platform of slowing development, fixing roads and lowering taxes.

"The primary goal is to get a doorhanger on every single doorknob in town. There's about 11,000 homes now so that pretty big job. I'm going to knock on as many doors as possible to hear people's concerns and answer their questions. I know there are a lot of really upset people and I want to put my best foot forward."

Four years ago he introduced himself to the public in the Labour Day Parade and will be participating this year's edition. He's invited people to join him in the parade and many have taken up the offer to join him at the Burnco site for lineup by 9:30 a.m. on Monday morning.

"I've got lots of candy and Disney tattoos for kids, music and signs. It's going to be a lot of fun."

Meanwhile Dan Cunin, who was first out of the gates in the spring, will become even more visible this week. His website and social media should be fully function to help him push the three major planks of his platform.

"Quite honestly the people of Cochrane made my job easy. Because people, in one form or other, boiled it down to three priorities. It came down to traffic, debt and planning."

Last election he says he visited every household and while he's not sure if that's possible this year, he has been knocking on doors since the spring listening to residents.

"Hopefully by next week I'm delivering flyers and I'll be back out going door-to-door."

Two more people have been officially added to the town list. Bella Fallis and Miles Chester are the latest to register, joining mayoral candidate Tom Hardy and Cunin.

Three current councillors, Mary Lou Eckmeier, Gaynor Levisky and Jeff Toews, have indicated they will not be seeking re-election. Long-time councillor Ross Watson is seeking re-election and  it is anticipated Mayor Ivan Brooker and councillor Tara McFadden will be announcing their intentions to run shortly.

Running for office? We'd like to tell the community. Contact news@cochranenow.com or phone/text Noel at 403-968-3059.