Incumbent councillor Ryan Mennie is seeking re-election.
Mennie hopes to serve for a second term on city council after a tough three years.
“It’s been an incredibly challenging time to come on as a new councillor,” Mennie said. “In three years, I’ve worked alongside three different city managers. As part of council, I helped to almost completely rebuild our economic development office, Rivercorp, revitalizing their board with representatives from all areas of business in our community and helping them find a new CEO. The city was also severely short-staffed in several departments, including finance, making the first two budget sessions very challenging. And all of this took place while our community was losing millions of dollars worth of tax revenue with the closure of the Timberwest sawmill and the Catalyst pulp and paper mill.”
In spite of the hurdles in his first three years, Mennie remains positive about his time spent on council and optimistic about the future.
“During those challenges of inner turmoil at the city and the loss of a substantial amount of tax revenue and local jobs, there were some major achievements. We extended our runway and made improvements to our airport. We replaced a massive amount of aging water and sewer infrastructure on the highway in Willow Point on time and on budget. Both of these projects, totaling about $22 million, were done without borrowing thanks to the majority of funding coming from the provincial and federal governments. In the end we have a new airport authority promoting the facility as an industrial investment opportunity that can attract larger aircraft, and the seawalk was made even more beautiful and enjoyable as part of the highway project.”
Of all the city projects completed over the last three years, there’s one in particular Mennie is most proud of.
“Being the voice of young families in the community, I fought hard in my very first budget session to make sure the rest of council was aware of the need for replacing the playground at Willow Point Park. Seeing the smiles on the faces of the kids enjoying that new playground as I push my daughter on the swings made those long, late night budget sessions all worth it.”
Mennie is optimistic about Campbell River moving forward as a community.