A week away from nomination day, five of the six current town councillors have now declared their candidacy for the upcoming municipal elections.
Coun. Mary Jane Harper will seek a fourth term on council, and said her previous work as an elected official is one of her strengths.
"I've had a very varied background as far as board and political experience," said Harper, who is also a former school board trustee and was president of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association. "It was something I've always wanted to do, (to) serve our community by becoming a councillor." Like other councillors, Harper has her sights set on continued collaboration with neighbouring Mountain View County, something that will soon be mandated in the newest iteration of the province's Municipal Government Act.
"We have developed, over the years, a great working relationship that shows that we are cooperating with each other," she said. "I believe that we are light years ahead of other municipalities throughout the province."
"We are not having that turf war," she said. "We're saying, ëthose areas on our fringes, where can we help each other?'"
Some of those areas include shared fire services, recreation funding and land developments. But overlap also comes down to the residential level. "We use their roads, for example, to get from point A to point B," she said. "(They) provide players for our sports teams, and support our business community."
In her time as a councillor, Harper said that having good debates around the table, but coming to consensus and remaining cordial is what she enjoys most.
"I don't consider it either winning or losing the debate," she said, "but coming to common agreement for the best of the citizens."
Harper says one of the bigger successes during her time on council, and one that she is particularly proud of, is the recently aggregated community standards bylaw, which she calls a living document that can be fine-tuned as society changes.
She said part of the drive to pull individual bylaws into a single package was the idea that although you can't legislate "respect for thy neighbour," you can at least provide guidelines.
But what made the exercise so successful was making sure residents had their say.
"Before we did anything else, we went to the public and asked our citizens, ëWhat changes would you like in these bylaws?'" Because of that, she said, council was able to enact the new bylaw with no major uproar.
"The buck stops with council and those elected officials," she said. "But we don't act in isolation. We have to use judgment, we rely upon information provided by administration and staff, but we also look at what the public is telling us." Harper said one of the biggest challenges in town is aging infrastructure ñ including road maintenance, underground services and ongoing water loss issues ñmaking sure it works properly and funding is available.
At the same time, Harper said there is a fine balance between what can be provided and the ability for taxpayers to foot the bill.
"We only have one taxpayer, when it comes to the Town of Olds," she said. "We can have all the amenities in the world in our community, but if we put our property tax structure so high (then) people can't afford it, or don't want to live in Olds."
That balancing act is a hallmark of local government.
"I think managing our infrastructure, managing our growth to make sure that we have steady growth and that we have that great balance of residential and non-residential growth," she said, "and we are seeing that come."
"It was something I've always wanted to do, (to) serve our community by becoming a councillor."MARY JANE HARPER
