Waddell wants to improve Cornwallis communication

Rural Municipality of Cornwallis reeve candidate Mike Waddell says he hopes to streamline communication with residents and strengthen ties with neighbouring municipalities if he’s elected in next month’s byelection.

Waddell, a former councillor, faces former reeve Bill Courtice in the Dec. 3 byelection, which was triggered after Reeve Sam Hofer resigned in April.

“Elected officials best serve their constituents when they remember that the chair they are seated in represents the people they’re serving,” Waddell said in an interview on Friday.

He said the municipality needs to do a better job at communicating with residents, using methods like a printed newsletter or sending phone messages about what council is doing.

That communication would also include doing more to engage with the community when preparing the RM’s budget. Residents are essentially shareholders in the municipality, he said, and those shareholders should have a greater a say.

“Every year we ask the shareholders for a cash call in the form of taxes,” Waddell said. “And so the greater engagement we can have with the ratepayers of the RM, the more accurately we can best serve the overall RM.”

That would mean flipping the current system the municipality uses, he said.

“Historically, the budget process is basically the ratepayers have to go looking for when the consultations are. I would like to kind of reverse that and take the consultations out to some of the community centres that are in the RM and actually do an engagement prior to budget deliberations.”

The 55-year-old car salesman and owner of coffee-shop newsletter News In A Minute served as a councillor in the municipality between 2014 and 2018. He left politics after his term ended due to personal obligations.

Regarding better communication with neighbouring municipalities, Waddell said he wants to see governments get together to discuss what’s important.

“The greater the communication that can exist between neighbouring RMs, the greater opportunity there is for partnerships that can benefit both partners,” Waddell said.

He said municipalities like the City of Brandon and the RM of Elton are great partners, and the more governments communicate, “the greater chance we have to succeed as a region.”

His campaign has gone well, Waddell said, and he’s putting in the work going door-knocking, handing out flyers and calling people he knows.

The Sun has reached out on multiple occasions over several weeks to Courtice for comments on his platform and his reasons for running, but he has not consented to an interview.

Courtice served as reeve prior to the 2022 election.

The December byelection will see the winning candidate hold office only up until the end of October 2026, when the next municipal election is scheduled to take place.

People can vote on election day between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. at the Brandon Hills Church, Sprucewoods Community Hall or the RM office.

They can also vote at an advance poll at the RM office on Nov. 24 between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. or Nov. 29 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

» alambert@brandonsun.com