Gary Sulz

He was a city councillor from 2014 to 2018 and has been Mayor of Revelstoke since 2018, re-elected in 2022 with 77 per cent of the vote. He is the incumbent among the three candidates for mayor of Revelstoke in the general local election of 17 October 2026.

Career

Sulz was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta. By his own account he has operated the funeral home in Revelstoke since 1984 and has lived in the city since buying into the business in 1990. He served ten years as an RCMP auxiliary officer in the 1990s and directed emergency social services for the Revelstoke and Area Emergency Management Program. He was elected to city council in 2014 and became mayor in 2018. In 2022 he was re-elected mayor with 1,461 votes, 77.18 per cent, against 432 for Nicole Cherlet. On 12 August 2026 he announced that he would stand again. The City's notice of election of September 2026 lists three candidates for mayor: Sulz, councillor Tim Palmer and Taha Attiah.

Positions

Sulz campaigns in 2026 on continuity, saying that now is not the time to start over. He points to a finished official community plan, updated zoning bylaws and development cost charges, faster housing approvals, spending on roads, sewers and water, more RCMP officers and firefighters, an ambulance station kept open and fully staffed, the start of upgrades to the wastewater treatment plant and housing projects with BC Housing and the Revelstoke Community Housing Society. In 2022 he likewise ran on continuity, on affordable and employee housing and on working with Indigenous leaders, industry and the province towards a sustainable forest sector. He holds that the city is responsible for local government services only and that international questions lie outside its mandate.

Controversies

In January 2020 councillor Steven Cross resigned after council rejected his motion to forgo pay rises that lifted the mayor's salary from $30,000 to $75,000 over three years. Cross had asked for a third-party review; Sulz called it unnecessary, said it would have cost about $30,000 and stood by the decision, CBC News reported. In November 2025 Sulz asked councillor Austin Luciow to withdraw a motion on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and council then voted 4-3 to let the mayor turn away notices of motion deemed outside municipal purview. Luciow, councillor Aaron Orlando, residents and a lawyer said the change limits debate, the Revelstoke Review reported in April 2026, when the policy was in force; the city says the Community Charter was followed.

Summarised automatically from the linked sources. City of Revelstoke · Revelstoke Review · Revelstoke Review · Wikipedia · CBC News · Revelstoke Review