It’s been a whirlwind few months for city council, but I’m excited to get back to submitting a column for Observer readers on behalf of city council.
Since the election, city council has been extraordinarily busy.
With three new councillors on the team, we’ve come through an extensive orientation and strategic planning process, which is beneficial to the returning members of council as well.
During orientation, we learned about local government structures, challenges and opportunities and received a thorough review of the types of services the city offers and our organizational structure.
And in strategic planning, council worked as a team with staff to develop a series of goals and objectives, carrying on some of the longer-term, more visionary type of planning that we started in 2011.
We’ll report on that process in the coming months.
I am excited about the team we have in place. My new colleagues, Coun. Ed Coleman, John Brisco and Scott Elliott, have wholeheartedly embraced the responsibility of becoming a city councillor. They are learning at a rapid rate and stepping into roles such as the acting mayor and committee chairs with confidence and pride.
And their quick uptake on portfolios, such as finance, business and neighbourhood relations, heritage and volunteerism has been very impressive.
Our returning Coun. Sushil Thapar, Laurey-Anne Roodenburg and Mike Cave bring their experience and leadership back to the table with enthusiasm and positivity and are anxious to move forward as a team.
With the diverse opinions and wide-ranging experience set that exists on council, I’m looking forward to this term as we tackle all issues that face our community.
Our community faces challenges, no doubt. Whether we talk about our infrastructure deficit, budgetary constraints or the need to invest in new infrastructure, we know we’ll have some open and frank discussions about what our future holds.
But we also see opportunity, be it attracting new investment, enhancing partnerships and looking for alternate revenue sources.
One thing is certain; if our community gets bogged down in the small details of running the city, we will expend all our energy dealing with those types of issues and not continually looking at and adapting to the bigger picture.
If we focus on the big picture and come up with strategies and concrete actions and policies to address both challenges and opportunities, the finer details will, as a matter of course, be dealt with accordingly.
This is not to say that the community’s concerns aren’t important; of course they are, and we take them very seriously. But by focusing our energy we can deal with those concerns on behalf of the community far more effectively and efficiently.
We are moving our community forward!
Do you have a question for Mayor Mary Sjostrom? E-mail it to us at newsroom@quesnelobserveer.com and we’ll forward it to the Mayor so she can answer it in an upcoming column.
