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:
Scott Nelson
I’m running for the mayor of Williams Lake.
The mayor provides a vision, a tone, and a new direction for the community that creates a positive pro-active environment around the council table and community, which will help establish solutions and key policies that will assist our community in moving forward.
The top three issues are jobs, more investment, and seniors housing. We will move quickly to partner with the seniors of our community and region to develop housing units in the downtown core. That will provide quality, affordable, and accessible access to our seniors while at the same time working with our seniors on reducing the transportation barriers that impede their movement from their homes around the community. We must prioritize investment into Williams Lake to capture the opportunities of small business expansion, attraction, and the niche markets they serve. With the addition of Walmart, we must push for additional, large big box retailers to help Williams Lake become the key shopping destination for our community and the region. The attraction of new shoppers is the key to diversifying our community. Mining, forestry, agriculture, tourism, First Nations tourism, hi-tech, and the TRU-north University are all key, untapped jewels in job creation. Williams Lake is going to have a mining boom from Gibraltar’s $325-million expansion to Black Dome, Spanish Mountain, Taseko, and the many, many more mines that are being marketed for opportunities. We need to tie in our university to train for these unique and untapped mining, forestry, and international students at the TRU-north university. Williams Lake needs a new direction, a positive direction, and a new change.