Ten candidates running in the City of Weyburn's municipal election were in attendance at the Weyburn Chamber of Commerce's All Candidates Forum held on Wednesday, October 30th. We asked each for feedback on how the event went overall, as well as any takeaways they had and if there was anything they may be changing going forward since the forum.
"It was very well attended. I was very happy to see how many people came out to listen. It shows engagement within our city," shared Marcel Roy, seeking to be re-elected as Mayor.
"I feel that there have been a few questions, when you look at the Regina Mayor's Debate, I think there's a few more pointed questions could have been asked. Ones like, 'what would you do in the first hundred days of being elected, being in office?' Things like, 'how would you make things more open fiscally to see what you're going to do?' We needed just a little bit more pointed questions because I felt like a lot of these questions were similar to what the age-old questions, always talk about downtown revitalization, 'how are we going to bring it?', 'are we going to do tax breaks?'"
"But we need to expand our forum as to, and I think the citizens would like to have, I had that feedback that we would have liked to have seen a little more expanded questions as to what we're doing."
As for takeaways and changes, Roy noted, "No, I think I'm still very much on track as to what I always said. In my closing remarks, I was saying we're going to continue building and working with what we are doing here. Our infrastructure is continually being improved. We're looking at making sure that we improve our roads, our sidewalks, our water systems. We're looking to make sure that Weyburn stays is the number one place in the prairies to live or those categories that we can have very good recreational facilities for our citizens, for the size of community that we are. Again, and that's where I say we have to be fiscally responsible."
"We could ask for the most luxurious of rinks and luxurious of swimming pools that we could offer, but you can see to our neighbors to the north when you get into those grandiose ideas, you've got to be able to afford to know what we can afford. So, we're going to give the best that we can afford for the amount of money we have. So, that's what we have to look at here. And also, but one of the takeaways was also that we have to continue doing like when we, I know that up and coming the pool is going to be a big topic, that we have to do what we did with the Spark Centre is look towards and have user groups interact with the city as to what they actually would like to see. The Spark Centre was a wonderful user group interaction with the city, and I feel that we got it fairly well right with what we had up there at the Spark Centre."
Jeff Richards is also running for the Mayoral seat.
”Well, I think the forum went good. It's always good when folks can get together in a room like that, you know, candidates and the voters and get a feel for each other and have conversations about what we think the future of Weyburn is going to look like.”
“You know, I think that one of my key takeaways there, and I said it actually that night, was we're awfully fortunate to have this many good people running for city council in Weyburn. We're lucky. I found that a lot of the folks at the front had a lot of the same ideas about what policies might work good and what ideas we can bring forward,” shared Richards. “So no, I don't think I would change a whole lot about any of my policies or my views, I guess. I think it was really good to see.”
As for the eight candidates running for one of the six seats on City Council:
Laura Morrissette said, “I think it went really well. All of the candidates were very well researched and they had some really great answers. It's also neat to hear other perspectives that you don't think about when you're coming up with your answers for the questions that they sent us in advance. So it was actually a bit of a learning experience for me as well.”
”I don't think there's anything I would change. Like I said earlier, I learned a lot which is always a great opportunity for me because I like to learn something new every day and Council really gives me that challenge and I really appreciated the audience too. But I know they didn't get a chance to ask their questions at the forum,” she noted. “A lot of people stuck around afterwards and that’s a great way for me to network. You know, I encourage people to come and talk to me on the street while I'm out and about. I'm always interested to hear peoples' questions and give them the answers. If I don't have it when you're talking to me in the moment, I will get back to you with it. I'm open.”
Lorri Wiberg shared, “I thought it went really well and the fact that many of the potential councillors are looking for more involvement in the community, such as sharing open transparency between City Hall, City Council, and the community, which I think for my interest in Council is a top priority, I was very pleased to see that most of the councillors felt that was important.”
“I think ongoing communication, discussions amongst the councillors, too, is very important,” continued Wiberg. “So that as opposed to just hearing a councillor share an idea, I would have loved, too.”
“Being able to, at this point, meet with some of the Councillors and saying, ‘where are you coming from? What kind of approach are you taking? Because I like what you're saying. How can we work together?’ As a Council, we sit in the Council chambers, at least from my experience, and we all put our hands up and vote for something. But when you are strategizing, when you're trying to figure out a good approach, it's so important for council members to sit together and share their ideas and brainstorm. I think that's critically important in my operation.”
Ryan Janke shared, “I really had a great time. I enjoyed that discussion. I loved the questions. I loved the audience being there. It was certainly a lot nicer to have a real audience compared to four years ago during COVID, when the whole thing had to be done online. Yeah, and I thought the turnout was excellent. I would definitely shout out and thank the Chamber and Monica and her team for putting that event on for us and I hope that as many people as possible will watch it online."
He pointed out the video from the Forum is now posted on YouTube.
"I think that's one of your best looks you can get at the slate of candidates for council and particularly at the two mayoral options."
Janke continued, "The two things I really took away from that were that our community has an appetite for economic development and that we want to continue to focus on our infrastructure, and neither one of those are new to me. I already knew that. But it's great to see that reinforced and I think going into the next term here, if I'm lucky enough to still be at the table. So going to be the thing that I push and those will be the things I think we all need to focus on."
Todd Bedore said the forum was a huge success.
"It was really good. It was very well attended and that means there's a lot of engagement in our community and a lot of great questions posed by the Chamber."
He also noted that moving forward it will be a team effort.
"I think we heard the message that you know there's an affordability crisis in the in the country and in our town. We need to focus on infrastructure. We need to focus on growing our city because we don't grow our city, the tax base just has the brunt of the payments."
Kellie Sidloski said that she loves seeing the community get so excited about these events.
"We had almost all the candidates out there with which was really important and I think the questions were great, I hope. I hope people got some answers and know that we are available to answer any questions more in-depth if they didn't get the answer that they were looking for."
Moving forward, Sidloski said she is excited to build new relationships with the community.
"Having open and honest communication with people. So I think I'm just going to continue building those relationships and listening to what the taxpayers say are most important."
Larry Heggs is running once again for city council; he has a positive impression of the forum, with regard for its subject matter.
“I think in general, the forum went quite well, keeping in mind that it's put on by the Chamber of Commerce that represents the business community and the questions that come from that are business-related questions. Sometimes there isn't the general representation for the general community that I think some people are looking for, but all in all, I think it fit the bill for what it was designed to do, for sure.”
He explains his takeaways saying “I think that really, my biggest takeaway is that there's a lot of great people running. I think that there's choice and there's opportunity for residents here and I think that it's given the opportunity. I think the people should get out and vote and as far as changing anything, I don't think that I necessarily will. I believe in my platform, I guess, and I believe in the community and I'm proud to serve them, so I don't, I really don't think I'm going to change anything there.”
John Corrigan is also running for another term on council, he describes the forum saying “I thought the chamber did a great job of putting it on. The public interest was fantastic, it was great to see so many people out."
His takeaway from the event involves getting further community input.
“When you get into a forum like that and especially put on by the chamber, the questions usually revolve around the business community within Weyburn. I would have liked to see, and we did get some public questions, I would have liked actually to see a few more questions from the public and we had two because I think that's important to get that sort of input there. Business community, of course, is very important to Weyburn, but hearing from the public what they have an interest in and what concerns them I think is key also.”
This is Dana Pretzer’s second time running for council. Regarding the forum he says in general, it went well.
“I was more than impressed with the turnout of the public, people from Weyburn who came to watch in person. And I give the chamber credit for organizing the event. This has gone on for many years and I've participated in many of them. So again, I thought it was very well. The time constraints were a little difficult. Just when you started to answer a question, your time was up. But I understand with so many people, you only have so much time.”
“I think it got their message out," said council candidate Dana Pretzer. "I think there's a lot of things that we can do with the government, with the people, that we can keep money in the people's pockets and maybe get it from another way or make Weyburn just as great as it's always been."
Read more from Discover Weyburn about the Mayoral Candidates, Marcel Roy and Jeff Richards; the four incumbents running for City Council, John Corrigan, Larry Heggs, Ryan Janke, and Laura Morrissette; and the other four candidates running: Lorri Wiberg, Kellie Sidloski, Dana Pretzer, and Todd Bedore.
Candidate profiles can also be found under the 'Your Candidates' tab on the City of Weyburn's 2024 Municipal Election website.
Advance polls open up next week for the City of Weyburn's Municipal Election, coming up on November 13th.