Lobo the donkey's mayoral campaign has B.C. city buzzing

A B.C. woman who says her community needs a shake-up this upcoming election wants her donkey to run for the city's top spot.

Lorraine O'Connor thinks her donkey Lobo has what it takes to be the mayor of Grand Forks, a city with a population of about 4,000 people in the Boundary Country region.

"We need a change. We need a big change," O'Connor told CTV News Vancouver.

"People are tired of who is running now and they're a little upset with who is planning on running and I said, 'What they need is a big change and Lobo could be that change. Sure he could.'"

O'Connor says she started Lobo's campaign on social media as a joke after seeing what someone had to say about another candidate.

"There was a comment made on Facebook about some ass who was running and I said, 'Hey! Lobo could run. He's an ass,'" she said.

She hit a roadblock though; the nomination paperwork refers to the candidate as a "person."

The joke campaign still generated plenty of buzz in the community, much of it positive. In fact, O'Connor said she's only received about three negative comments.

But city hall staff and other candidates running for mayor have been silent, she said.

"Of course being a mayor is a really important job. I mean it really is," she said, adding that her campaign was "just for the fun of it." 

If nothing else, O'Connor says she thinks she's brought a little more attention to the October election.

"The really interesting thing with this is it's made people aware that there's a civic election coming up," she said. "It made them aware of who's running."

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Spencer Harwood