Healthy Youth, Healthy Lake and 'Collaboration to an extreme'

Ian has proven skills of persuasion, negotiation and an ability to listen, study and focus on people's interests.

A councilor must read hundreds of pages each week before meetings. Ian has a great grasp of 'legalize', finances and data management to bring to the table.

Read the platform below for more.

Platform values

Healthy Youth, Healthy Lake and Collaboration are used to highlight how Ian will focus many of his decisions, and how he will approach the many issues we will face in our community.

In some ways it could be seen as a contradiction that an individual town councilor have a platform since Ian is seeking your support to become part of your town counsel TEAM. When a new player is brought in, they don't take over your team! What Ian's platform will reveal to you are some of his key values, how they relate to the decisions he will make on issues of our town.

In all Ian's leadership positions he has come to realize that most good organizations' resources have already been fine-tuned to serve us well. But even in good places, if we don't come into leadership with clarity, integrity and due diligence, our municipalities will crumble and waste our taxes. In good organizations, there is always insight into how resources can be reallocated so that they build the visions of the community. This will be a challenge in these inflationary times. Ian has years of experience in managing large sums of money in workplaces and in registered volunteer societies.

"I will bring my 'platform values' to the table and they will continue to guide my decisions with the ideas that YOU and I bring forward. My values will also be applied to the issues that appear unpredictably. Life is full of surprises that we must deal with."

Healthy Lake

The very name of our town focuses on our natural water body and I am committed to keeping it safe, fun, and clean. Lakes all around us have algae blooms, sediment and development pressures that also pressure our own lake. Whenever I think of my decisions on council, I will ask myself and others, "Is this good for our lake?" Will it be healthier, or pressured?

The lake is not just our identity. It is a place that lifts our spirits, it attracts people from all over Alberta and the world. These visitors sustain many families in our town. The lake is part of the 'headwaters' that flow down the Red Deer River and are depended upon by Canadians in close by Red Deer, southern Alberta and farther downstream by the Hudson Bay. We owe it to them to be good stewards.

My 18 years living and working in the Yukon has had a profound affect on my view of natural spaces. Moving 'back south' in 2007 made me think very deeply about the importance of our 'wilderness' to our health. As a child my parents took us tent camping to natural spaces in the Rockies and places across this great country of ours. This appreciation for our lake as part of the natural world and also our economy will always be in my mind.

Our lake is healthy, but is still pressured by us. Nutrients from fertilizers, sediments, rigid shore structures, and pollution from our urban environment. Here is a picture not far from my own house showing sediments moving into the drainage toward the lake. What's a few buckets of sand? Not much, but after every major storm from every neighbourhoud we should be sure we are not affecting our fish habitat, which is also our recreation and economy.

Healthy Youth

Healthy youth are the key to our town's future. Each family and community depends on youth to become our next adults and leaders. It is these ideas and a belief that "It takes a village to raise a child" that I bring to council as well. Just to name a few, whether it's play equipment in your nearest park, sports or library programs, and public spaces designed for youth, I will always support improving them with my vote and my time. In continued partnership with other agencies, we can stretch our youth dollars farther to make more possible. The town is embarking on a new Parks and Green Spaces Master Plan. This planning can support our interest in a healthy lake and also address the needs of youth and all other ages. My father was an award-winning Parks Superintendent for 34 years. He taught me plenty to bring to this discussion.

I happen to believe that all youth are potentially "at-risk" if we do not surround them with loving parents, good community mentors like their church leaders, coaches, youth leaders and more. I can attest to this reality from being a teacher and vice principal over a career of 35 years. These experiences with youth have guided me strongly into seeing youth as being in a period of time to expand their limitations, with our community support. If we do not offer our support, youth can become wayward and our future communities would crumble with them. These are some of the reasons I will focus on youth as much as my own love for our children who have "grown up" and are just starting the next generation of children in my family.

Sylvan Lake has strong programs for youth. We must collaborate with all agencies to continue to support our youth and the families guiding them. "It takes a village to raise a child."

Collaborative in the extreme

There is no space large enough to list or predict every issue. I am sharing my decision-making approach that I bring to the table to address most challenges we face. With that knowledge, you will know how important it is to support me as a candidate.

I have a proven record of collaboration success which is a key skill for team members. Collaboration with a deep ability to listen is what I will bring to council. Some people think we need a 'bull in the china shop' to shake things up. I respectfully disagree. We always need people with new and different perspectives and I will bring that to Council. I can see the community as a whole and how each part affects us and I can work with others to solve issues. That's also what I bring to the council table.

I see many issues we face as a community. They include keeping our healthy and diverse housing mix, economic renewal in parts of our town, making sure the Urgent Care Center can stay open and expand, new library and high school, convention center, post-secondary training, a possible "land-bank", Parks and Green Spaces Master Plan and whatever crisis might come over the horizon from other layers of government or natural and economic calamities that arise in life unexpectedly. Practically none of these issues can be solved by us alone as a town. We can partner with the Provincial government and our local MLA, our school board, Indigenous communities and the surrounding counties and summer villages. We must work with these near dozen layers of government and with all the businesses and organizations of our communities. The bull in the china shop is the last one you want in the room, especially since we yield little power without common interests. This is especially true with our provincial government partners who we depend on with their tremendous taxation power. That's why my collaborative attitude in council can bring us success.

Let's not forget we work with an amazing public service in our town. I see them maintaining our parks, buildings, roads, sewer, trees, doing governance work and so much more. We need to collaborate with those we ask to work in our trenches. I have a deep respect for municipal service as I have done this work myself as a very young man and my father served as a municipal parks superintendent for 34 years.