1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
2. What is the part of the Williams Lake’s Official Community Plan that you careabout most, and want to see action on? https://www.williamslake.ca/310/OfficialCommunity-Plan-OCP
3. What solutions or ways forward do you see to address concerns around crime andhomelessness in our community?
4. What do you think needs to be done to attract and retain professionals such as health care providers in our community?
5. Can you name a few fun facts about yourself?
1. Hi, I’m city councillor, Marnie Brenner.
I acknowledge I live and work on the traditional and ancestral territory of the Secwepemc Williams Lake First Nation. I am from the Tobacco Plains Indian Band in the East Kootenays on Ktunaxa territory.
2. During my first term, my vision for Williams Lake has grown from a focus on Indigenous relationship building to economic sustainability, social sustainability, and environmental sustainability. As a nurse and active community member, lack of housing, increase in mental health and addictions without adequate local supports, health care reform, health care professional recruitment and retention, extreme weather fluctuations affecting environment sustainability are all competing issues I care about.
3. We need to take a multi-faceted approach to reducing these issues, through implementing a relational policing model to meet with community members, facilitate outreach and referrals for vulnerable persons, and provide investigative and enforcement support to RCMP, perhaps an expanded role for our current bylaw officers. And invest in additional services and supports for those suffering from mental health and addiction issues. Such as furthering the development of programs at the Hamilton Inn, which is now serving as a shelter for the Hard-To-Home, and the Foundry, a mental health and substance use support for young people.
4. As a nurse serving our community for over 20 years, I understand challenges for health care professionals coming to Williams Lake who are often required to take on a very large workload to cover any gaps, which can quickly lead to burnout.
Typically, our healthcare system depends on financial incentives to attract and retain professionals without looking into other factors that would contribute to work-life balance priorities.
5. Second year at Royal Roads Master of Arts in Leadership - Health focus. I’ve coached and played both hockey, soccer.