After serving on city council for one year, Coun. Sheryl Armstrong has decided she wants to try for another term.
Armstrong, who won a byelection last July to join City of Nanaimo council, has announced she intends to run again in this fall’s local government election.
“I really would like the opportunity to work with staff to actually move the city forward. That’s a really key piece for me…” she said. “Because I don’t think we’ve been doing that because of some of the issues we’ve been facing.”
Her year on council has been tumultuous, with an investigation at city hall and being threatened, she said, as well as the challenges of being part of a city council that couldn’t always work together.
“We worked at it to a degree, but there was a lot of really set positions, which I think wasn’t helpful,” she said.
Armstrong said it’s “100 per cent” true that people have made generalizations about city council or groups of councillors. She said she’s kept up her Facebook page and given her rationale there about council’s decisions and she hopes people will judge her on what she’s done, not just what council as a whole has done. Come the election, voters will decide if they share her values or if they feel her reasoning has made sense.
“You hear a lot of negative stuff, you hear positive. I believe I’ve tried to do my best…” she said. “I think people feel that we need to clean house and that could be me as well. Hopefully not, but that’s a possibility.”
There are projects that Armstrong would like to keep working on, should she be re-elected to council. She thinks preliminary work toward supportive housing can begin long before dollars are announced. She would like to see south downtown waterfront visions start to become realized, at the right pace and in accordance with the wishes of the community and the master plan. She feels an economic development strategy is needed, and thinks city communications can be improved.
“It takes a long time to accomplish a lot of stuff,” she said. “You can get some small wins, but we need to go about it properly.”
Armstrong looks forward to trying to become part of a new city council, and now, a more experienced member of that group.
“I think it’s important to have some continuity because it is a huge learning curve,” she said.
For articles about other candidates who intend to run in the local government elections, bookmark this page.
editor@nanaimobulletin.comLike us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter
