Newly elected members of Williams Lake Council were sworn on Tuesday evening.
Corporate Officer Cindy Bouchard announced and conducted the swearing in of Council after Williams Lake Indian Band Chief Willie Sellars with elder Virginia Gilbert led traditional song and drumming with Council.
“In early January we will go through our strategic plan and update and set some goals and objectives for the coming term,” said Mayor Walt Cobb noting that the last four years were interesting and challenging, to say the least.
“It started out with some major structural changes which took some adjustment by all but everyone stepped up to the plate and made it work. As we look forward to the next four years, we have a huge job to do as we transition to a more diverse economy. We as Council work hard to find new industry and investment to help us grow and those efforts will continue.”
“With the signing of the memorandum of understanding with the Canada Asia Economic and Culture Association recently we began the process of enhancing our secondary education with international students,” Cobb added.
“We have the new cannabis industry knocking on our doors, but that will also take a lot of work to bring to fruition. There’s more to be done with fire smarting in our community and looking at access and egress routes in case of another event. The second crossing to the west side has already begun, the waterfront development can now happen since we were able to solidify our access to the lake and from other areas at Scout Island.”
“We had a record year in building permits from recent history and as we stated in our budget discussion over the last four years we wanted to maintain tax increases to what the new assessment we received through growth. We hit over 33 million dollars in new permits this year-it’s the largest at least in the last 15 years, and this will go a long way to assist in the intent to maintain rates and still meet our inflationary costs.”
“So with that let’s buckle down and get to work.”
Councillor Jason Ryll said he agreed with Councillor Scott Nelson that exciting things are on the very near horizon for Williams Lake, and said he’s looking forward to the next four years.
Councillor Sheila Boehm said she’s also looking forward to what they can do for the future.
“It is an honor and privilege to serve the community,” said Councillor Marnie Brenner.
“I look forward to a bright future of building strong relationships that will benefit Williams Lake and our surrounding communities. We can learn from the past, but we only change the future. Together moving forward we can build a stronger, more vibrant, united Williams Lake.”
Councillor Ivan Bonnell said investment in our infrastructure is vital to attracting new development in residential, institutional, and industrial sectors.
“Improving the sustainability of our natural environment can lead to better health and prosperity for our whole community,” he said.
“Retention and attraction of business, professionals, and all services and more opportunity for economic growth can be achieved by working in partnership with others as we have seen over the last term.”
Councillor Craig Smith said being re-elected to sit once again on Williams Lake City Council is something he takes a lot more serious.
“These last four years have been a pretty steep learning curve for me both with the City as a new Councillor and then going back to school to get my masters so I took on my role as a councilor as the same I would as a student. It involved studying, research, writing, and making informed, educated decisions,” he said.
“When I ran in 2014 there were a few reasons that were dear to my heart such as access to the lake, red tape that I experienced living in a commercial property, and the rising crime rate. I thought that you can’t whine if you’re not prepared to do something about it, but over the last four years I’m proud to say that I’ve been a part of a team including mayor, council, and staff that has affected some real change in the City, and the reason for my learning again is to be part of a new team that will keep this ball rolling.”
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