With roughly nine months until Edmontonians go to the polls, the city’s mayor is in good position for re-election. Council, though, not so much.

A poll done in January by Mainstreet for Postmedia shows Mayor Don Iveson’s approval rating has increased six per cent in the past three months. Of the 614 people contacted in Edmonton, 58 per cent either strongly or somewhat approved of the way Iveson was handling his job. Just 33 per cent either somewhat or strongly disapprove of Iveson, with nine per cent unsure.

That puts Iveson in fifth spot, three points ahead of Toronto’s John Tory and four points back of fourth-spot Denis Coderre from Montreal. The three most approved of mayors of Canada’s major cities were Ottawa’s Jim Watson (79 per cent), Saskatoon’s Charlie Clark (72 per cent) and Calgary’s Naheed Nenshi (65 per cent).

When the question was posed about how well people felt councils were performing their duties, though, Edmonton’s rankings fell.

“Edmonton is one of only two Canadian cities (Vancouver being the other) that has a negative net approval score of their city council,” said Mainstreet president Quito Maggi.

Edmonton’s council collectively only managed a 43 per cent approval rating versus 44 per cent who disapprove and 13 per cent undecided. That ranks them dead last out of the 10 cities polled.

When people were asked about their local councillor, though, the numbers were slightly better, showing a 49 per cent approval rating against 30 per cent disapproving and 11 per cent unsure.

A seasoned campaigner, Coun. Mike Nickel sees a “high level of anxiety” so far as he has been knocking on doors in his ward.

“I just know from knocking on a lot of doors that people are very upset about the direction of a lot of what council’s been doing,” said Nickel.

He said the perception is that the city has had trouble building major projects on time and on budget. He added, though, that the decisions of council and the actions of city administration can often be mistaken for each other.

“People are expecting value for their taxes and they’re expecting performance. If you take a step back, and given the state of the economy, there’s a lot of anxiety out there,” he said.

The poll doesn’t decipher between councillors, so while some are well liked by constituents, others may not be. There are some general issues Nickel expects to be talking points as the election nears.

Among them are lot-splitting and surplus school sites, issues he said voters are more and more informed about thanks to social media and public engagement efforts.

“There’s a higher level of knowledge and there’s a higher level of engagement from individual councillors,” he said.

So far, 32 people have filed their notice of intent to run in the Oct. 16 election. Of those, 22 are not on council now. Of current council members, Ed Gibbons, Bryan Anderson and Michael Oshry have not filed notice of intent to run for re-election.

The statistics compiled for Edmonton are believed to be plus or minus 3.95 per cent 19 times out of 20.