Hello Everyone! Thanks to all of those who came out last night to support candidates and get informed. It was a great night. I did choke on my first question as it was my first political Q&A and I momentarily got distracted by the fact I was answering questions not asking them, but it went extremely well anyways. For you who missed my speech I have copied it here for your viewing pleasure. Have a great day! My Name is Lisa Steciuk and I’m running for Mayor. Three years ago we got together as a community to make some changes. At that time we made the changes that we felt comfortable with. Now I’d like to ask you; what has been accomplished by our council over the last three years? Are we happy with these results? Have we seen the open and honest council we were promised? Our infrastructure including water and sewer has been ignored, and is in overall, very poor condition and requires millions in repairs and upgrades. Our daycare has been misplaced, our children thrown out on the street, parents and grandparents lives turned upside down, with no adequate explanation of how a town owned building got into such a state of disrepair. Business, Industry, and community relationships have been broken, and neglected. Development has been next to nonexistent and the resale real estate has declined steadily for six straight years While the town council spent its time arguing over truck bans, 38 million dollars of industrial, commercial and residential development went to Fox creek, A community which also welcomed 24 new businesses in the same time frame. Since the 2009 recession our neighbours have gone from, on the ropes to booming, from record sales in Grande Prairie to massive investment in Fox creek, yet our town has stagnated. Why? Our current council, has allowed Hundreds of thousands of dollars, in grants and millions of dollars in potential development dollars to disappear. Borrowing millions, and raising all of our local taxes. Our business taxes have become so high, that investment dollars have been scared away, and existing businesses have seen their value disappear, with their tax bill as a back breaking burden. A commercial building with a 50,000 dollar a year tax bill has, in effect, a permanent $800,000.00 mortgage that will never get paid off. With little attention to the needs of many of us and our children; they squandered what there was; covering up huge investigations, legal expenses, and pretentious mistakes, at the cost of its citizens. Those same citizens, are bearing the brunt of this councils, unwillingness to ask tough questions of the MD, or to make realistic demands of our neighbour, who earns over 67 million dollars a year in an industrial tax base, largely made up of Grande Cache citizens As a council we need to start repairing our local relationships rather than trying to be federal or provincial politicians. Many of you in our community do not know how small of a window we have to advocate for the citizens and the future of Grande Cache. If Federal and Provincial warnings are true; we can only expect; the cost of infrastructure and municipal expenses; to increase exponentially; over the next 10 years. We will be required, to take over the cost, of many services, programs and facilities, that we are currently building, or dreaming of building. We have no clear plan or direction to deal with this future world, currently acting as a merely reactive organization, immediately deciding, to throw money at situations to fix them. As a Mayor, with apparently, no money as our current council saw fit to borrow against it; I realize what we have to do ask, our corporation, to do several things immediately. • Get the budget and spending under control. Look for ways to cut the budget; utilizing the three R’s reduce, reuse, and recycle. • Reward our administration for developing operational cost saving initiatives. Many of our more costly services only need to be looked at from a different point of view in order to realize efficiencies and savings. As of yet I have not seen a 20 dollar bill that can actually physically do the work, though I think current spending strategies think that it can. We have to act more as a council obtaining knowledge and insight to new markets and potential for our own economic advancement. The coffee shop is no place to get your political fill. This council needs to bring the community back into the discussion at our table rather than second hand reviews from the water cooler. Many have asked: How will I be accountable: Its actually, a very easy answer. I will be accountable because I will be here, I will be available; and I believe that I, as Mayor and my council have a responsibility to communicate our actions and decisions to you, the citizen. Taking the position of mayor I understand it is the role of our council to make and come to the consensus in making decisions for the community. As the Mayor I will work closely with the CAO to provide guidance and information to the council allowing them to make individual informed decisions for the best interest of everyone. In closing I would like to say that as mayor I believe that myself, and the council are only entitled to one thing and that is to serve the community with honesty, integrity and to achieve great accomplishments benefiting the whole rather than the few. I hope on Oct 21 you will vote in something new! And I look forward to serving you all as Mayor. 5mins 19 secs
Posted on: Wed, 09 Oct 2013 16:54:19 +0000
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