Current occupation -Retired
Background- I worked in municipal government for 31 years when I retired in 2012. Four of those years were in the engineering department as the Senior Engineering Technologist and the remaining 26 years as the Director of Public Works for various municipalities in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. The last 13 years were for the Town of Ladysmith. I have lived in Ladysmith for 19 years and I was elected to Ladysmith Council in 2014 and am seeking a second term.
Why are you running for council? Municipal Government has given me a good life and I want to now give back to the community. Having worked for the municipality I believe I have a unique understanding of how municipal government works and also in how the various departments work.
If elected, what will your priorities be for the term and how you will tackle them ? The most important thing for me is to insure that the Town has a safe and adequate water supply. With the funding we just received, the Town is able to build a water treatment facility which will give us safe supply for years to come. I want to continue to push forward with increasing the capacity of Holland Lake to allow the Town to grow in a systematic way and still insure an adequate water supply. I believe very strongly that the present tax payer should not be burdened with this increase in capacity with most of the cost being borne by future development.
What’s the best path forward for growth on the waterfront ? The best path forward for the growth of the waterfront is to approve one project at a a time starting with having one building put up on the jewel. That would give the Town start up funds for the walkway and other amenities that were included in the approved waterfront area plan. We also need to continue to work with our First Nations partners to push the senior levels of government to pay for the cleanup of our waterfront starting with the dredging of the channel between Slag Point and Woods Island to allow the natural tidal flows to start to clean the entire harbour.