City finances on council candidate’s mind

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This article was published 11/08/2022 (1264 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A new candidate has stepped up to turn the race for Ward 8’s city council seat into a contest.

Corteva Agriscience territory manager Jason Splett has registered to run in what is currently known as Richmond Ward.

After two unsuccessful runs to join the Brandon School Division’s board of trustees in the 2018 municipal election and a 2020 byelection, Splett is hopeful that voters will choose him to serve them on council this time around.

His only opponent so far is Michael McCormick, the manager of physical plant at Brandon University who has also registered to run in the ward.

Splett’s entry into the race sets up the fourth contested ward race for the upcoming election, with two candidates also registered to run in wards 2, 3 and 10.

Where McCormick pitches himself as a recent arrival to Brandon who has fallen in love with the city, Splett said he came to love the Wheat City more than 20 years ago when he moved from his hometown of Hartney to study at Brandon University.

Though he left Brandon after graduation, he returned to the city with his wife — whom he met during his studies at BU — and is raising two children. He has now lived in Brandon for 20 years, the last 12 in Ward 8.

“Business and numbers are what drives me [as well as] serving the people,” Splett said. “Every day I’m talking to customers, and I think that goes a long way to talking to residents of the ward and people of the city. I’m open and approachable and able to get their voice heard.”

With incumbent Coun. Ron Brown having been on medical leave from city council for more than a year, Splett said that Ward 8 has lacked a voice at the council table, and he’d like to fill that void.

“Different wards have different needs, and I think just having a local representative, people will have a better representation in the city,” he said.

Based on his conversations with constituents, he said ward residents are concerned about multiple safety issues: bicycle and pedestrian safety and safety from crimes like break-ins and bicycle thefts.

Splett is hoping to ramp up his campaign in a couple weeks when people have returned from vacation and are getting ready to go back to work and school.

Looking at the work done by Brandon City Council since the last municipal election, Splett praised councillors for leading the city and its residents through two difficult years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, he said he believes there are some items that are worth re-evaluating to make sure they’re being done well.

With inflation a growing concern, he said he wants the next council to make sure the contracts being signed and money being spent and borrowed is done at a good value for the city and its residents.

Though he’s in favour of the growth that the proposed wastewater infrastructure upgrades in southwest Brandon could bring, Splett also wants to see if the current timeline makes sense in terms of the money that has to be borrowed and if some elements can be delayed to spread costs out.

He also has concerns about the proposal to double water and wastewater utility rates by 2026 and the financial effects that will have on residents.

“I think it’s going to be on everybody’s plate, the $30-million loan that’s coming up,” Splett said of the election campaign.

Given inflationary factors, Splett said he would like the city to reassess its recreation master plan.

After Portage la Prairie secured a couple of large ag businesses like the Simplot expansion and the Roquette pea processing plant, Splett said the city should pursue attracting another large business on the scale of Maple Leaf Foods to help drive growth.

“We’ve got rail lines going into town,” he said. “We’re on [the Trans-Canada Highway] and we’re also on Highway 10 coming up from the States. I think, geographically, we’re in a pretty good spot, but I think there’s always more we could do to try and attract large-scale plants.”

When it comes to promoting voter turnout in this year’s election — something that was lacking in last year’s Meadows-Waverly byelection and the previous municipal election — Splett said he believes that good candidates running strong, contested campaigns is the way forward.

Election day is Oct. 26.

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