Joy Thorkelson stresses need for Depth and Balance on Council

One of the longer serving Councillors at City Hall is seeking four more years to lead the charge in Municipal politics.

With incumbent Joy Thorkelson providing a detailed list of the issues she believes are key to the 2014 campaign, all part of a household mailer that arrived in the same day's delivery of that of Councillor Barry Cunningham.

Among some of the main points of consideration from Ms. Thorkelson, a review of Development issues and how she believes that new industry and business should find the community a welcoming place, providing that those looking to locate here respect our environment, appreciate our values and add to our bottom line.

Housing has been one of the Councillor's key issues through this year and she makes it a major focus of her household mailer as well, stressing her work on the file at Council and the urgent need to develop seniors housing, supportive housing and rent controlled housing in the community.

She also addresses the need for better communication from the City with the residents of Prince Rupert, as well as with neighbouring communities.

Offering up a range of options to provide for more engagement with citizens, including an increase in public meetings and hearings on the impact of an LNG plant in the harbour area.

On Taxes and Budget issues, she outlines her goal of voting for a budget that addresses the city's infrastructure and services, while keeping taxes as low as possible.  Another theme she repeats in her pamphlet is the need to seek out a revenue sharing agreement with the province to provide for new income sources.

Of course one of the perils of being an incumbent is, that when it comes to themes of what could take place over the next four years; people may wonder why some of those ideas couldn't have been put in place during the past term of City Council.

As a way to close her presentation to would be voters, Ms. Thorkelson highlights  how business interests are always on Council's agenda, explaining how she offers up the added perspective of presenting the view of the workers of the community during those discussions.

A quick snapshot of her points of interest from the home mailing can be found below, offering a bit more background to some of her commentary at last weeks City Council Forum at the Lester Centre.

You can review those points of discussion from the Forum, through the video archive from the event.

For more items related to the 2014 Municipal Election see our archive page here.