Can you just tell us a little bit about why you decided to run for mayor?
I was born here in Moose Jaw, so I feel like I have a lifelong attachment to our city. Through personal experiences, I have a deep desire to improve our city and the commitment to follow through and contribute to a sort of Moose Jaw revival, if you will.
I also feel like we've had many years of ineffective governance. I would like to improve performance and accountability in a top-down fashion, and I think we need some long-term strategies to improve our infrastructure and instill the service aspect of our city administration and staff.
Can you speak a little bit about your experience in public service, community boards and politics?
I've got several years of experience with nonprofits and food banks, I was a board member with the local hospice for a long time, and some nonprofit crime prevention groups, and of course, I have sat on community boards for several years, some before being elected, and certainly during the four years while I was elected.
I worked with both federal and provincial governments and leadership roles that a lot of times were in board governance, and the four years as councilor here in Moose Jaw have been a great experience.
Do you feel that experience matters one way or the other in this race for mayor?
That's a great question. I would have to say that I think experience in governance at the mayor's level is critical. Some of the candidates with council experience, I think, would have insight into municipal operations and policy making processes that are hard to explain and can only be learned.
I believe my combination of experience and fresh ideas is particularly valuable to our city. I certainly would not want to come into the mayor's role as I did on council, and even with my board and financial acumen, it took me probably a year or close to a year to get comfortable. As far as the councilor's role, I don't think experience is nearly as important as vision, integrity, and determination. In fact, I would say a vision of change and freshness would far outweigh the stale, old, “we've always done it this way” kind of attitude that I've witnessed from our council.
Has there been any topic or policy issue or incident that was kind of the tipping point for you?
I would say there's several issues that slowly filled the bucket, if you will. Vacant and derelict properties, panhandling, and vagrancy that we've witnessed. Several times I felt I was being stifled, mocked, or disrespected in council. There seems to just be a disregard for community safety and some of the covertness around the handling of the new landfill project.
I would say we're (the councilors) all contributors, but I think as far as the tipping point, I really had to ask myself “What's going on?” when the rejection of that $50 million housing project proposed for the former Union Hospital land (was rejected) even with the 10-year Event Center sponsorship. That kind of just left me shaking my head about our ‘Get a Life’ initiative and solving some of our affordable housing issues. I would say that was the point where the bucket tipped.
What criticisms do you have, if any, for the politics you've seen over the last two or three years?
I thought how I could explain this criticism without sounding like things are totally hopeless, but I would say that it has to be emphasized that council is responsible for setting the strategic direction and policies for our city, and a city manager should implement actions that align with those council priorities and not being sort of a ‘tail wagging the dog’ situation.
As to our overall political landscape in Moose Jaw, I have to borrow from former premier Tommy Douglas and his famous Mouseland speech – and I would urge people to look up that speech if they're not familiar with it.
But a lot of voters will always vote for cats, especially self-promoting and special interest-promoting cats and often cats with solid name recognition. Like Mr. Douglas said, cats make good decisions for other cats, but they don't care too much about the greater population of mice. So, I think it's just high time that we in Moose Jaw elected the mice, the mayor and council, and started making some good decisions for the mice.
What is your plan to compromise or cooperate with fellow council members to accomplish those policy goals?
I feel that the mayor's responsibility is in leadership, so I think working with the council that has some good – I don't know if the term is common sense – but just the ability to look over an entire project, look over the report, and perhaps even table that report until we can gather more data.
I think I would work well with other councilors in collecting that data and making very informed and community engaged decisions.
What else would you like voters to know about you?
I think that recently I was maligned somewhat for a perceived anti-homeless or NIMBY kind of attitude surrounding the Souls Harbor location and the more recent back-alley curfew.
I just want to be clear that I voted in favor of Souls Harbor back in November 2020 and further, I supported that local citizens groups right to be heard, not necessarily their position to disallow the Souls Harbor location. My lane access bylaw, too, was misconstrued in my opinion, and it wasn't presented as I intended.
Discover Moose Jaw will also have full coverage of the municipal election on Nov. 13.