Colwood and Nanaimo mayors both seeking reelection

Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi and Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog both say they will seek another term in this fall’s municipal elections.

The mayors of Colwood and Nanaimo both announced this week that they are running for another term in this fall’s municipal elections. Colwood Mayor Doug Kobayashi, who is seeking a second term, said he made the decision after concluding he was healthy, had his family’s support and genuinely wanted to do the job for another four years. “I love the job.

It’s probably one of the best jobs I’ve ever had in my life,” said Kobayashi, who served one term as a councillor before becoming mayor in 2022. One of his signature accomplishments has been opening a city-leased clinic in January 2025 and hiring physicians as municipal employees. The doctors are paid as Colwood employees, but funded through billings to the Ministry of Health, in the same way doctors in other clinics bill for their time and office assistants.

Colwood has recruited four doctors and a fifth will likely start by the end of the year, Kobayashi said. The hope is to expand to up to eight doctors. Since the clinic opened, about 2,000 residents who previously did not have a family doctor have been able to receive medical care.

Kobayashi said he wants to continue to grow the clinic, as well as working toward expanding recreational amenities on the West Shore, including building a community hall in Colwood, and see the completion of an expansion of Quarry Park in Royal Bay. Meanwhile, Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog, who was first elected as mayor in 2018, says he will seek another term. Krog noted that when he first ran for office, city council was regularly making headlines for its infighting and scandals.

“I campaigned on the basis that I would bring back good governance to the city, that we’d restore our reputation, that we’d keep Nanaimo out of the headlines — both provincial, national and, indeed, on occasion, international,” he said. “And that’s the achievement I’m proudest of.” Though Krog acknowledges the current council is not always “all happiness and light,” he said it’s way better than what it was.

Among the issues he has dealt with in his two terms as mayor, he said, the one that has stood out as the single-biggest