FAQ
What are your thoughts about residential property taxes, keeping the town's expenditure in check.
As a current sitting member on Town Council, we have provided a zero percent tax rate increase for the past two years to help citizens navigate through the economic hardships of the global pandemic and economy in Alberta.
I think Town Council and Administration did a great job in moving forward with projects fiscally by leveraging partnerships and government grants, e.g. Arts and Learning Campus and Affordable Housing project.
What is Council's role in promoting sustainability/renawble energy?
As a Town Councillor for the past eight years in Okotoks, I have supported the Town’s vision of being a thriving, sustainable community. The Environmental Master Plan was developed by Council to help the Town achieve this vision.
One direction in this Master Plan focuses on creating an energy efficient and low-carbon environment to improve the health of our environment and wellbeing of our residents. The Town of Okotoks will support a transition towards the use of renewable energy through a comprehensive Renewable Energy Strategy. The Strategy will focus on renewable energy production at both the micro-scale (e.g. on individual buildings), and macro-scale (e.g. at the community and/or utility scale). As Okotoks has some of the best solar potential in all of Canada, and has focused on supporting the use of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems throughout the community and in our Town buildings, e.g. Operations Centre, Okotoks Recreation Centre, etc.
The Town will identify options to enhance resident access to financing that mitigates the up-front cost of purchasing a solar system, as well as any other additional incentives. For new construction projects, the Town will explore requirements for new buildings to, at minimum, be built “solar-ready”, and/or to require a certain number of buildings within a new development to be equipped with solar PV panels. Larger scale options, such as community and utility-scaled solar systems, may also be considered in the future.
Ways that this can be achieved is through green building requirements for new constructions. Other initiatives include DIY Home Energy Audit Kits to residents with basic instructions and tools to conduct their own residential energy audit and identify opportunities to upgrade their energy efficiency.
The Town supports alternative funding programs such as Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE), which assist residents in affording major energy efficiency upgrades and the installation of renewable energy into their homes.
The Active Transportation Plan outlines a number of strategies to encourage non-automotive forms of transportation and the construction of more active transportation parking facilities (i.e. bike racks). The Town has also installed eight electric vehicle (EV) charging stations around Okotoks, encouraging a shift away from gasoline-powered vehicles.
Okotoks will partner with other local governments to encourage the adoption of a province-wide energy benchmarking regulation. In the meantime, Okotoks will work with building owners and other municipalities to explore ways of starting to benchmark local buildings. To support these efforts, the Town will also work with utilities to improve building owner and tenant access to energy use data, and explore a future requirement for energy audits and the release of energy performance data at point of sale.
What's your view of the Federal govt's policy to allow/promote municipalities banning firearms?
Firearm legislation is a federal matter and should remain under the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada.
Would you vote to support these: vaccination passports/masks?
Fundamentally as a current sitting Town Councillor, I would not vote to put in place any vaccination passports or masking measures that are outside of what the Province has mandated. My vote would land where the Chief Medical Officer of Health has directed, as the AB Gov't is the regulating authority in this manner.
What can you do to slow down traffic on Westridge Drive?
As a current Town Councillor, I can speak to the work we have done with community members, Town engineers and the local RCMP and Okotoks Municipal Enforcement to address this.
The complaints raised by tax payers have resulted in traffic studies being conducted for Cimarron Estates, the Milligan Drive and Crystal Shores Road intersection, to name a few. Solutions were found for these problematic areas, including flashing lights on stop signs, speed bumps and speed reductions within the neighbourhoods. If there are vehicle behaviours that are endangering the public on Westridge Drive, this needs to be brought forward to the Town so that they can increase police presence and implement traffic safety measures.
FAQ
My responses to the Okotoks Art Council's Questions
- A robust program of public art to the health of the community is immeasurable and the Town should continue to support local artists. The Town will continue to commission public art in various forms and spaces, including the Arts and Learning Campus. The accessibility of public art around Town can help to interconnect the community, reflects and reveals our culture, and create meaningful discourse. A mix of murals, sculptures, architectural pieces, community art projects, and performance festivals would bring people together and enhance the community greatly.
- As a Town Councillor, we approved the Okotoks Culture Heritage Arts Master Plan (CHAMP), which includes the direction to administration to develop a Public Art Policy. The CHAMP master plan - Build Foundations, Action C1 (p. 33) speaks to developing a Public Art Policy and program. Key elements of the policy would include funding, roles and responsibilities, decision-making approaches and maintenance. The policy was targeted to be established in 2019 but was delayed due to the global pandemic. As CHAMP governs the direction of Arts & Culture in Okotoks, if elected I will ensure it remains a priority for the new Council and Town Administration.
- Arts and culture programs, services and facilities in Okotoks are very important. Most significantly, the Town needs a new performing arts facility in Okotoks. My wife and I owned a dance studio in Okotoks and we saw first hand what local theatres bring to a community by travelling to theatre venues all across Alberta. These facilities foster community and bring culture to the forefront. Cultural programs need to continue to be inclusive to all community members and all audiences in Town and should be further enhanced in the future. The Town provides arts and culture to the community through many services offered via the Okotoks Art Gallery, Okotoks Museum and Archives, and the Rotary Performing Arts Centre along with supporting many not-for-profit organizations and inter-municipal partnerships (Champion Park). I am most proud my last term on Council, which worked with Foothills County in the purchase, operation and opening of Champion Park to the community for public events.
- Yes. Arts definitely contributes to our local economy as it helps attract and grow other sectors of the economy. Having a Performing Arts Facility will directly bring in thousands of visitors annually who are participating in dance competitions, community theatre projects, and so forth. They in turn use our hotels, restaurants, and gas stations, as examples.
- I envision the arts being integrated into the Arts and Learning Campus in the future, including an outdoor plaza opening in 2022. Additional public art is slated to include an interpretive playground honouring local history with opportunities for much more pubic art at this campus.
What is your position on the deer population in Okotoks?
As a current Town Councillor, I can speak to approving the Urban Deer Task Force and their final report in May 2021.
The report and recommendations showed that effective deer management requires a number of different tactics and approaches. The final report was a very comprehensive document, which provided the research and guidelines to develop a long-term program for managing the deer in our community.
The recommendations from this final report included action items to manage the deer population, including decreasing negative human-deer interactions, decreasing property damage, and increasing public awareness of individual actions residents can take to maintain a respectful, safe relationship with urban deer.
The Town has already implemented one of the recommendations with a temporary fencing pilot project currently underway. This provides residents with the option of protecting their gardens by extending their fences to deter deer from getting into their yards. There will be more findings implemented over the next few years.
The cost of the deer management program in Okotoks would be for contractors, studies, staffing resources and public education campaigns. I would imagine most of these costs would be ‘soft’ expenses such as Town of Okotoks staff, etc. The task force consisted of unpaid volunteers.
The full report can be found here on the Okotoks website: https://www.okotoks.ca/sites/default/files/2021-05/2021-05-10-UDTF%20Final%20Report.pdf
If elected what is the first thing you will do with respect to Okotoks financial situation?
I would continue to offer what I had been doing for the past 8 years on Town Council, being fiscally responsible and leveraging partnerships and grant money to subsidize tax payers portions of capital and operational projects where possible. It is also important to note that according to the July 2021 report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB), Okotoks continues to have one of the lowest spending per capita rates in the province, ranking fourth for large municipalities based on two metrics, operating spending per capita growth from 2010-2020, and 2020 operating spending per capita.
If elected would you lobby for Okotoks to join the Alberta Coal Restriction Policy?
In the May 25, 2021 Town Council meeting, Craig Snodrass put forth a Proposed Alberta Coal Restriction Policy, which was accepted as information by the Town Council. I supported the Town of High River and Mayor Snodgrass' version of a new policy that works towards protecting the our water resources in perpetuity.