ROB MURRAY: Vi Sanford is running for the job of Mayor of Canmore. Tell us a little bit about your background and your related experience for the job of mayor.

VI SANDFORD: I’ve been on Town Council since 2012. Prior to that, I was on the Canmore school board. What I bring to this role is that experience, but also being involved in the current issues of the day. I believe that the continuity that I could bring to the role of mayor is supporting what we’ve been doing for the last nine years, but also bringing it forward into the future. We’ve learned a lot in the last nine years. There have been a lot of initiatives that have been started and I’d like to see them complete

RM: You’ve served on Canmore Council. Why mayor? Why did you decide to run for that position in this election?

VS: I think it’s important to always be growing and advancing. I believe, after nine years, that I do have the experience. I’d like to see some of the climate goals achieved, and some of the things that we’ve set out to do with Indigenous relations and improving town services. I’d like to see us advance into some new areas that are giving us opportunity right now.

RM: What would be your top or one of the top issues that you really want to tackle in the upcoming four years, and maybe some ideas you have around it?

VS: I think the major thing that we’re going to be dealing with in the next four years will be recovery from this pandemic. One of the main areas that I’d like to focus on is also resort municipality status. The Town of Canmore needs some support from our province, and our province is relying on us to grow our tourism industry, so I think we have opportunity here. I’ve been working with our MLA Miranda Rosin recently. I think we have a good conversation going.

RM: Looking back on the last four years, what’s something you feel that this past Council that you sat on did a really good job tackling? Conversely, in hindsight, what’s something you feel that maybe didn’t quite hit the mark?

VS: One of the things I think that we have significantly advanced is addressing climate change. We have a Climate Action Plan. We have hired a climate specialist who will help us evaluate all of our projects going forward. We are proposing to build a near net zero fire hall, which is a huge undertaking for a small municipality.

One of the most recent things that we’ve experienced is communicating during difficult times. The pandemic response has been a very important aspect of what we’ve had to manage in our community. Recently, we had a boil water advisory as a result of some turbidity in our water system. I think it was very confusing for people and what that meant. We had been doing such a major undertaking of informing people during the pandemic about health and safety that we needed to do better during the boil water advisory, because we were also dealing with health and safety. However, there were some gaps in the system because a boil water advisory is not considered to be something that you can use the Alberta alert system for. We were struggling to figure out how to communicate more effectively on this one issue of health and safety. I think we could do better on that, even if it’s just to let people know their health and safety is being managed effectively and properly.

RM: Speaking of communications, if elected, how would you stay engaged with the people of the community?

VS: Because I’ve lived in Canmore for a long time I have a lot of networks. I have a lot of people that I discuss things with. I’m also very accessible and available, and I like having face-to-face contact. I would make myself available as mayor in my office to have ongoing conversations with people. I also think one of the things we used to do as Council was have monthly coffee gatherings where people would come out and just interface with the councillors and mayor who were available on that particular day. We can also do Zoom town halls, which we found to be quite effective during the pandemic. The mayor has been meeting with different organizations like Rotary and CYAN, so I would make myself available to go out and speak to different groups on topical issues of the day.

RM: Is there another issue or part of your platform you’d like to chat about that we haven’t really touched on already?

VS: We’re hearing a lot from the community about climate change. Organics collection is one of the features that we’ve rolled out recently. It’s a big operational piece for us. We like to try and address the concerns of the community and we have to always evaluate the cost benefit. Housing is another issue that we talk about regularly in the community. One thing that our council has done is purchase a piece of land which we can now control rollout for an affordable housing concept.

The land was transferred to Canmore Community Housing. This is the New Life Christian Centre land, which is slightly west of where the Catholic church is. I really look forward to full engagement of the community to have that discussion, much like we did with the Hawks Bend development that Canmore Community Housing also developed and built out. I think the product that we derived from that was very successful because of that long community discussion and because of the kinds of things that were explored. I’d like to see that as the next step for our council in the next four years, to look at how we can engage the community and some housing units on land that has been transferred to Canmore Community Housing.

RM: Where can people find out more information about you?

VS: I have a website. I’ve also posted my donation contributions to date on my website. I know people are interested in transparency and finding out who is funding campaigns. I will be going door to door and I encourage people to reach out to me at my email address. I’m really happy to engage with people.

RM: Why should people vote for you for Mayor of Canmore?

VS: I love my community, and I really think bringing all the experience and knowledge to the role of mayor will be valuable and meaningful to our community. We are going to be facing a lot of significant issues in the next four years, but I think I have the background in those issues to properly address how we move forward as a community, and also to collaborate and facilitate a functional council. I think that’s a really significant aspect of the mayor’s role, is to provide that framework for council to be effective and functional, and also to serve the community extremely well.

Filed under: Canmore, Municipal Election