OLDS - With several years of retirement under his belt now, Darren Wilson found himself paying more attention to what was going on in his home community, especially at town hall.
“I’m inquisitive by nature; I like to ask a lot of questions. I like to have an understanding and so I felt myself observing things and wondering why. And then as it came to the budget that kind of prompted me,” said Wilson.
He had questions about the splash park repairs and expenses related to the Rotary Athletic Park of Olds. So he fired off some emails to council and the town’s CAO.
Then the announcement came that councillor Wade Bearchell was resigning from his seat on council and a byelection was being held.
“That’s probably what piqued my curiosity and again I was thinking, well, you can stay on the sidelines and write letters and do that or become a little bit more involved,” said Wilson.
This fall, he began attending council and policies and priorities meetings.
“I’ll be the first to admit that sitting in on three meetings doesn’t make you an expert. But it helped give me an idea of what goes on, a snapshot," said Wilson. “And I thought after those three meetings that this is something I could do. This is something I would enjoy to do and enjoy doing, and I thought I could provide some benefit.”
The married father of two adult children has extensive management experience in a variety of positions, having retired recently after 31 years with a multi-national oil and gas company.
"I wouldn’t say I’m Warren Buffet as far as understanding business, but I’ve got a good working background as far as financial statements, accounting, and what it means to develop a budget," he said.
“In the public sector not everything can be looked at as far as simply cost. There are services that are a necessity, the core services, and so you’ve got to be able to balance, or not simply look at it from a cost-revenue perspective,” he added.
If elected, he said he would be a champion for fiscal responsibility. His focus would be on the long-term sustainability of Olds.
While a zero per cent tax increase for 2020 was a favourable outcome of this year’s budgeting process, Wilson said other communities like Chestermere were able to give bigger breaks to taxpayers.
Everybody is having to make do with less, he said, calling the current downturned economy the new normal.
And if there’s a community that’s got a better way of doing things, he said that bears further investigation.
Affordability is a key focus going forward, he said.
“That was one of the things in my correspondence (to council and the CAO) was affordability. Affordability is a big issue these days. Affordability is a big issue in Olds, it’s a big issue in Alberta, it's an issue in Canada.”
Core services must be maintained, but the town can’t lose sight of the social, cultural and recreational needs of residents.
He’s a proponent of stretching a dollar and maximizing any possible grant opportunities to support the soft services.
With the Rotary Athletic Park of Olds about to open, streams of people are going to be coming to the town, who wouldn’t have before, he said.
It presents an opportunity for further economic development, he said, and he believes that begins with conversations and collaboration.
“Somehow we need to get the people with money and the developers and the planners together and figure this out,” said Wilson.
The town lost its opportunity last year to capitalize on the splash park as a draw to the town, he said, questioning whether repairs are worth it or whether it should be abandoned for another location.
Wilson joins Mitch Thomson, Sundai Cody, Rudy Durieux, Darcy Dobush, Keith Bishop and Jan Thompson in the race. The byelection will be held on Jan. 20.
