ROB MURRAY: Chip Olver is running for re-election for Banff council. Tell us about your background and your related…I mean, you have a lot of of experience with the job of Banff councillor.

CHIP OLVER: I’ve been lucky to be in the council role for more than 25 years. Prior to that I worked in various other positions in the community – as a programmer analyst for CMH, I’ve had service industry jobs, I’ve had manager level jobs, I’ve worked in retail, I’ve worked in restaurants.

RM: What election will this be for you?

CO: This will be my 10th election. It’s hard to believe because it’s gone by so quickly.

RM: Why are you running again?

CO: I find the items that you’re committed to working on and that you’re passionate about don’t conveniently end when a term of office ends. I’m committed to continue to working for our community. It’s interesting. It’s meaningful. I’m excited to be able to do it. I like the learning that comes with it and the research that I do to find best practices in other places. I just really hope I have a chance to come back and do it again.

RM: What is an issue that you’re passionate about and maybe some ideas you have around it?

CO: I’m going to say housing. It has so much to do with affordability, which is one of the big challenges in our community. Over the years, there have been incentives in the Land Use Bylaw to encourage the market building of housing. Things like increased density – up-zoning of lots to include multiple units or bonusing where if you’re developing multiple units you get to cover more of the lot. There have been changes to bylaws such as parking reduction for apartments if you’re close to transit, close to downtown, or provided indoor bike storage, which saw a real uptick in apartments being constructed. The Banff Housing Corporation has built over 300 units and that’s a mixture of home ownership of single family homes, duplex row houses, townhouses, and rental apartments. The Ti’nu rental of 131 units was occupied in 2018, the Aster will be open and ready to go in 2022, and then looking on to housing on Cave Avenue.

RM: Looking back on last four years, what’s something that you feel this past council did a good job tackling or something in particular you’re proud of?

CO: I’m proud of the whole community and how they pulled together on pandemic response. We’ve had individuals helping individuals. We’ve had businesses helping people with food and businesses doing rapid testing. Food rescue has been fabulous, and the whole uptake in our community on vaccination…we’re leaders in Alberta on this and it shows, I believe, because of our case counts. The Town’s emergency management team…what a job they have done. They’ve provided extensive social services and support ranging from daily phone calls to seniors, to isolation clinics, to encouraging vaccinations. I feel I’ve been a champion of safety measures to react to COVID from the early days of bringing in a masking bylaw which I asked Council to consider, and I’m so pleased that they supported indoor and outdoor masking.

RM: What about an issue that you think maybe Council missed the mark on or could have been done better?

CO: Because we have been so focused on dealing with the pandemic, our Bed & Breakfast working group had many meetings, made recommendations to Council, and that’s been delayed to the next council. A capital project at the Old Banff Cemetery, the columbarium and memorial wall…we had to push back capital projects to a free staff time and save budget money.

I requested Council consider re-introducing masking in mid-August. There wasn’t a majority of support at that time. I do have to note that by early September the province brought that back in, but we could have been a leader on that.

We have a wonderful, almost finished project on Bear Street, but it was more work than expected with all the underground work that was necessary. It was complex. There was frustration with residents and businesses on Bear Street. It took longer than we wanted it to. The end result is wonderful, but I wish we could have gotten through that project and taken whatever steps were necessary earlier than we took for it to run more smoothly for everyone involved and to avoid that frustration.

RM: If elected, how would you stay engaged with people in the community?

CO: I feel that I’m approachable. My phone number is out there. My email is out there. I want to engage in conversations with people, so I hope that they reach out. I also try to reach out to people. In the next term I really encourage people to be involved in the development of our Community Plan. It’s such a foundational document for our town and I hope everyone chooses to be involved in some way.

RM: What’s another issue you wanted to discuss that we haven’t really touched on yet?

CO: The other thing I would like to mention is how challenging the budget process is going to be through these next four years. Residential property assessment has remained strong and has even increased, but commercial property assessment is based on the business’s income and we know income has severely decreased. That’s going to make doing the budget challenging.

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

CO: My website.

RM: Why should people vote for you for re-election?

CO: I hope people vote for me because I’m ready to work hard. I work in a respectful and collaborative manner, and I look for the best solutions to the issues in front of us. I’ve had a more than two decades on council to build my knowledge and experience, and with the support of the community I want to bring that back to the council table.

Filed under: Banff, Municipal Election