Riley Weinrauch wants two things from this year’s municipal election.
The 22-year old council candidate grew up in the Border City, and returned to Lloydminster after moving away for a brief period to work in the oil and gas sector up in the Peace River area. Now returned, Weinrauch decided to run after disagreeing with some of the moves of the municipal government.
The first thing he wants is to see more people in his age group cast a ballot in the vote, which comes up on October 26.
“We’re going to be the future of this city for the next 40 to 50 years, and it would be nice to see our opinions count,” said Weinrauch, who spoke with 106.1 The Goat on Friday.
“A lot of people don’t really care about politics, in the last election it was 11 per cent came out to vote. I’d like to see that raised about 40 per cent, so I can get some younger people to go and vote. If they don’t vote for me, that’s fair, if they vote for me, great!”
The second thing that Weinrauch wants is to see a better road system in Lloydminster, with a focus on road-clearing in winter.
According to information contained on the municipal website, snow removal in Lloydminster is currently structured with two priority levels, with priority one routes being cleared within at least two days of a snowfall greater than five centimetres, and priority two routes being completed as soon as possible after the priority one routes. Residential areas are not included in the scheduled clearing.
“The main roads have got to be done sooner,” said Weinrauch.
“I was in the small town of Peace River and they were done, if it snowed all day they were out there all day. I’m not saying the guys are doing a bad job now, but we’d have more of a clear plan of how to do it and be more efficient with it.”
In addition to snow-clearing, Weinrauch wanted to see more turning lanes added off Highway 17, and also indicated a desire to examine the possibility of bringing in a rail overpass for the downtown rail line crossing, or the implementation of a public schedule so motorists won’t be stuck. He was not in favour of a public transit system.
As for policy areas beyond transportation, Weinrauch indicated he did not agree with the purchase of the downtown Synergy Credit Union building, which is the first step of the Community Hub project.
“I think we can spend money better ways, especially in this economy,” said Weinrauch.
“Downtown, it’s slowly kind of fading away, but right now is not the time to address that. We need to focus things on the wastewater, that is a little more important than an old bank.”
As for Weinrauch’s immediate campaign plans for the next two and half weeks, he said he had signs up in the community, and he planned to start door-knocking on the weekend. He hoped for a final voter turnout number of 40 per cent.
“It would be nice to see people get their votes in, instead of complaining about it,” said Weinrauch.
“Come and vote and be the change.”