Three political neophytes vie for Ward 9

With incumbent Coun. Glen Parker not seeking re-election, three political newbies are stepping up for their chance to represent Ward 9.

Scott Pedlow, Norah Woychyshyn and Keith Waterfield are hoping to get elected for the first time to represent the ward formerly known as Riverview Ward.

Pedlow, 58, is the only candidate who doesn’t currently live in the ward, but he says he was born and raised in Brandon’s east end and currently owns an independent business in the area.

If elected, Pedlow said he’d like to shift to a more proactive approach within the city and ward.

“As an example, there’s potholes and road repairs that need to be done,” Pedlow said, suggesting that a city department could “go around the city and identify these issues.”

“The idea of that is they identify the issues and then they send those issues to the proper department to be solved,” Pedlow said on Monday.

He said the current reactive approach — where residents submit complaints or identify potholes to the city — is something he’d focus on changing.

“I think we can do a better job, and we owe it to the taxpayers to do a better job on that,” Pedlow said.

“This proactiveness and maintaining what we have versus reactive and fixing things, I’m a big proponent of being proactive and taking care of the infrastructure that we have,” he said.

Pedlow said the issue of vacant properties in the ward is something he’d also like to address.

“There’s a number of vacant properties,” he said. “So that would be a big thing, is to actually identify who the owners of these properties are and encourage them to either develop them or sell them.”

He said he would advocate for infill developments to encourage growth in the ward.

“You can’t make any more land, so the idea is that we have to utilize the land we have to be available when we expand the hospital or offer other services,” he said.

Pedlow said he’d like to see duplexes or single-family homes that “would fit in perfect with the surrounding homes.”

“There’s probably about eight or nine, at minimum, empty lots that could easily developed into more housing,” he said.

“And it’ll give people an opportunity to get into the housing market.”

Woychyshyn, 63, also said vacant and boarded-up properties would be a priority for her if she is elected.

“I’d like to see even the people that own that property just take care of it, or get some more housing there,” Woychyshyn said.

She said one of the vacant homes in the area has caught fire before and it’s a safety concern among residents.

She said out-of-town visitors will see the properties while driving through the ward to local attractions, such as Crow’s General Store, where Woychyshyn works. Prior to that, she worked as a union representative with Prairie Mountain Health before retiring in 2015.

“So, we get all these tourists coming from out of town — they’re just going to drive down the street and just see an empty boarded-up building,” she said.

Woychyshyn said she would be open to looking over the bylaw about derelict buildings.

She also said she would push for better back-lane maintenance and repairs.

“I found some other back lanes that are in really bad disrepair, especially from the storms that come up,” Woychyshyn said.

She said the city doesn’t service some of the back lanes in the ward, which she would like to change.

“Especially the ones that are still being used by residents — something needs to be done there,” Woychyshyn said.

“In the winter, they said that sometimes (back lanes) weren’t getting plowed. The answer from the city has been ‘the machinery is too big,’ and when they do my back lane, they only do that portion, where they can take the bigger equipment in. They haven’t done the rest of the back lane.”

Woychyshyn said the snow in back lanes that don’t get plowed melts in the spring and becomes stagnant water in the deep ruts and potholes.

“You want us to not have mosquitoes, then we need no places where the water’s going to be,” she said.

Woychyshyn also said she’d like to see “more policing on speeding,” in the ward.

“If (people) are speeding at 50 (km/h), they’re still going to speed if the speed limit is 40, so we need policing in there, which, you know, give people a few tickets,” she said, adding that the money generated could be used as additional revenue for the city.

“If you want to get rid of the speeding, you got to stop the speeders,” she said.

Waterfield, 41, said speeding is also something he’d like to reduce in the ward, especially on the roads on the east and west side of Rideau Park.

“Lowering the speed limits around this neighbourhood quite a bit … that’s something that I would like to effect,” Waterfield said.

He said Lorne and Rosser avenues are two places he’d like to see traffic slow down.

“There’s a whole bunch of families that live on the north side of Rosser, and there’s no sidewalk on that side of the street, and people are flying, like they’re doing 60 or 70,” he said.

“There’s just no reason to be going that fast where there is a danger of a child getting struck by a car,” Waterfield said.

Waterfield, who is the executive director of the Brandon General Museum and Archives, said if he is elected, his focus would be on arts and culture in the city and to “preserve, take care and foster” the community in Ward 9.

“My platform has very much been community, arts, culture (and) heritage,” he said.

“We should want to bring tourists to Brandon, but we also want to have the type of city and the type of neighbourhood that people want to stay in,” Waterfield said.

“For that, we need to improve our pools and activities and family-friendly activities. I was thinking about like neighbourhood barbecues and movie nights at the park,” Waterfield said.

“Those are small things, (but) those are like actual things that can be done. It’s the idea of just really feeling that sense of like, we’re all coming at this together,” he said.

He said if by the end of four years, people’s opinions of downtown and community have improved, that would mean success.

“To me, (arts and culture) are like the foundations of what makes a place where you live worth staying for,” he said.

“These are the areas that get cut first with funding a lot of times.”

Waterfield said raising taxes is necessary, but he’d like to make sure if taxes go up, that services do too.

All three candidates will meet on the debate stage in the Lorne Watson Recital Hall at Brandon University on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

» rgerrard@brandonsun.com