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Al Richmond

The Tribune asked candidates running in the election a few questions about themselves and their platforms.
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Al Richmond

The Tribune asked candidates running in the municipal, regional, and School District 27 election a few questions about themselves and their platforms.

We asked the following:

• What position are you running for?

• Why are you running for it?

• What do you see as the top three issues to address in your community?

• How do you propose to tackle them?

Candidates in the area, including those who have been acclaimed, were invited to participate for free

and were given a maximum word limit of 275 words to answer the questions above.

The following are the answers we received from participating candidates:

Al Richmond

 

1. CRD director, electoral Area G.

2. To help the people of my community and our region have a better place to live.

3 and 4. Keeping the Cariboo an affordable place to live: we need to find new sources of revenue to reduce property taxation and look for new ways to provide services to our communities that could reduce the cost of paying for these services. By working with other local governments we may be able to reduce duplication and improve efficiencies in service delivery. Revenue sharing agreements such as the Peace River Fair Share, Columbia Basin Trust and the Elk Valley Industrial Tax Base Sharing Agreement need to be developed. Protecting water for future generations: the drought the Cariboo has experienced over the last 10 years has clearly shown the need to educate our communities on the value of water. If we are to have sustainable growth as a region we will need to develop polices to ensure development doesn’t exceed the availability of water. We need to develop watershed plans to ensure our communities have clean, safe drinking water for the future.

Building relationships with First Nation communities: to move forward as a region we need to ensure all the communities in the Cariboo are partners in planning for the future. Events such as last year’s All Nations Heritage forum and the cultural awareness session the CRD held at 150 Mile House were a beginning in building elected officials awareness of First Nations culture. What has happened in the past is affecting our future.  First Nations involvement in land-use planning needs to be a priority if all our communities are to prosper.