OLDS — Mike Muzychka, mayor of Olds from 2017 to 2021, is running for that job again.
Muzychka announced that decision during a visit to the Albertan Jan. 8.
He said over the years, he’s been urged by “many, many, many people” to run for mayor again.
“I think I get stopped more now in Sobeys and Walmart and Canadian Tire and the co-op than I did when I was actually mayor, asking if I'm going to go back.
“And then the asks turned into people telling me I should go. It wasn't an ask anymore, it was ‘you’ve got to go back,’” he said with a laugh during an interview.
“I think we had some really good success in my first term,” he added. “I took the four years off to regenerate. I feel healthy and happy, so I'm ready to take another stab at it.”
When he ran for the job in 2017, Muzychka had no experience in the post; had not even served as a councillor before, so it was all new to him. He thinks if he gets the job this time, things will be different.
“I think it'll be really successful, because I won't have the learning curve that I had last time. So if the good people of Olds decide that I should be sitting in the mayor's chair, then I'll be able to hit the ground running,” he said.
Muzychka was asked why people want him to run for mayor again.
“They want to see more transparency on council,” he said.
“So a few ideas that I've been batting around to maybe put forward would be to have recorded votes in council, so that people can look at the issues that are coming in front of council, and then see where every councillor and the mayor stands on that.
“And communication. People are feeling that there isn't quite as much communication out of the town as there has been in the past, so they want to see a big change there.”
Muzychka likes the province’s new rules that allow candidates to file their papers as early as the beginning of the year, even though the municipal election won’t happen until October.
“My full intention is to talk to every resident of Olds in the next 10 months,” he said.
Muzychka said another reason he’s running is that last time around, he and the council of the day lobbied the provincial government hard for funding.
“I think we saw a ton of success in that avenue. We were getting grants and money that other municipalities our size weren't getting, so it was a very successful lobbying campaign, and I'd like to pick that up and continue that on.”
Muzychka also said when he was on council, he and his fellow councillors worked very hard to run as lean and efficient a town as possible. He’d like to make that happen again.
“We had had several years consecutive with a zero per cent mill rate increase and we're very proud of that,” he said.
It was pointed out that the first couple of years of that council came before COVID hit, which eventually led to spiralling inflation that the current council and administration are battling.
Muzychka conceded that point but said, “we accomplished that by having council and administration delve right into every nickel and dime that was going out the door. And I think that needs to be reviewed again.
“I don't know if they're doing that. I don't know if it's as tight as it needs to be. It's something we'd have to have to have a look at if I make the chair.”
Muzychka agreed that lack of affordable housing is an issue in Olds, as it is throughout the country.
He suspects that bureaucracy is part of the problem.
“I think there's still a ton of red tape that we need to have a look at and that that's sort of the resounding message,” Muzychka said.
“The federal Conservatives feel that red tape needs to be reduced to be able to facilitate some of this, and they're encouraging municipalities to cut the red tape as much as humanly possible, which in turn cuts the costs for developers to develop.
“I certainly want to sit down with all the developers in the town that are active and potential (developers) and get their views on how to figure this out. Let's get everybody together at the table and figure it out.”
“Muzychka said another reason he’s running for the mayor’s chair is – frankly, he loves the job.
“I like finding consensus, and I like working with people. I love working with people,” he said.
“I kind of pride myself in the ability to try and get everybody calmed down and pulling in the same direction. Building a team is, I think, one of my strongest points and I think I'd like to take another run at doing that.”
In 2021, Muzychka lost his bid for re-election to current mayor Judy Dahl.
He agreed that the town’s decision during his term to turn Olds Fibre Ltd., which governed O-NET, into a municipally-owned corporation was a possible factor in his loss.
However, he also agreed that that’s likely no longer an issue because the town sold O-NET to Telus Communications in November.
“I think yeah, there were people that were discouraged by the whole situation with the Town of Olds, but I still firmly believe that that council did the right thing,” Muzychka said.
“We took the experts’ opinions, we saw some problems with O-NET from a financial standpoint.
“Now to go back and talk about O-NET, the legacy is fantastic. Like the idea of having O-NET in the town of Olds was phenomenal.
“And the group of volunteers that initiated all that and brought it to the town of Olds, kudos to them. That was visionary back in the day.
“But it just turned into the point where it wasn't sustainable for the Town of Olds to own it 100 per cent.
“And we weren't allowed by Municipal Affairs to take on any partners or anything of that sort of nature, so the decision was made by the experts. (They) thought that it was best to sell it.”
Muzychka said he spent a lot of hours and effort in his job as mayor. He said when he considered running for the job again, he talked that over with his partner, Lisa.
“She's on board,” he said. “And we know the political landscape has changed, and things are, you know, politics are a contact sport.
“But I understand the job much better than I did seven years ago, when first took the journey at the beginning of my last term. So I'm much more prepared to make that decision and we were much more prepared.”
