How long have you been living in Thompson?
I was born and raised here, so 48 years.
What do you do for a living?
Heavy equipment technician, truck driver and machine operator. The company I work for [A. Sapach Trucking] you’re kind of a jack of all trades
Why do you want to be on city council?
Mostly because it’s not the town I grew up in for all the changes that are happening.
As a teenager, you could walk anywhere at any time of night and not be worried about getting into trouble. You didn’t have the downtown issues … it was more of a family-oriented town and now it’s starting to get pretty rough. I want to be able to think that the people here with young families could be safe with their young families and not be worried about the stuff that’s going on. It never used to be in all the neighbourhoods, you never used to see the vandalism that we’re seeing now and now its just dispersed amongst the whole city.
What is the biggest local issue you want to address if you’re elected?
I think the biggest challenge is to work with the budgets that are coming ahead because of the cutbacks through the provincial government and trying to keep up with our street projects and our infrastructure projects, so it’s going to be very tricky to … forge ahead with the budgets that there are and the taxes the way they are and the price of everything going up and with Vale’s situation also.
Why should someone vote for you over the other candidates?
I’ve been watching the city council and it seems like it’s always a 6−3 vote. It seems like you’ve got three people there together and six people that are there together and you here everybody in town talking about the clubs. I just want to have an informed opinion of my own, so when I go into a meeting I’m not feeling obligated to vote one way or another. If I feel it’s best for the town I’ll vote for it. I’m not looking to be anybody’s friend or anybody’s enemy.
Anything else you want to add?
I’ve been here my whole life and it’s just time to get involved in something, so I want to try and be involved and try to make this a better place.
