Having to choose from a bunch of council candidates with the same family names, some folks in the City of North Vancouver are riffing on "The Twelve Days of Christmas" carol.

Something like “Two Clarks campaigning and three Bells running”, or that sort.

Bill Bell shared this bit with merriment when asked about his and his wife Dorothy’s campaign to get them both elected to council on November 15.

“So far the community has been very receptive to it,” Bell told the Straight in a phone interview.

Bell is a former long-time North Vancouver councillor. He ran for mayor in 2002, and lost to Barbara Sharp by 284 votes.

His wife Dorothy is a former chair of the Burnaby school board. She was also previously elected to the North Vancouver school board.

“We’ve got a couple of comments that we’re running our own Bell slate,” Bell said.

Ex-Liberal MP Don Bell (no relation) is currently on council, looking for another term.

Another incumbent councillor, Rod Clark, wants to get re-elected.

Another Clark—Matt Clark—also wants to be on the six-person city council.

As his wife Dorothy wrote in an online commentary for the Straight this past summer, Bell noted that other married couples have run, won, and worked together as councillors.

There’s Libby Davis, now an NDP MP, and Bruce Eriksen in Vancouver. Greg Halsey-Brandt served together with wife Evelina and former wife Sue in Richmond. The late federal NDP leader Jack Layton was with wife Olivia Chow on Toronto council.

“We’ve discussed it, and I said, she said she wants to run, I said I want to run, and then we both said, ‘No, you run,’ and then I said, ‘Well, what the heck with it,’” Bell related.

He continued: “I mean, you know, as an individual I want to be on council and as an individual, do you want to be in council? I know that there’s going to be some kickback on that from voters, but let’s both run and give it a try and see if we can convince the voters that two Bells on council is going to make a big difference in the community.”

They’ll know come election day if they’re successful in convincing voters to give them a ringing endorsement.