A two-term councillor has become the first out of the starting block in this year’s race for the Sturgeon County mayor’s chair.
Tom Flynn announced at the Cardiff Golf and Country Club Monday that he would run for mayor of Sturgeon County in this fall’s civic elections. He is the first declared candidate in the county’s mayoral race.
Flynn, 64, is a two-term county councillor in Sturgeon County who came to office in the 2009 byelection. He works for Flynn Brothers Projects Inc. A lifelong county resident with a wife and two children, Flynn says his family has lived in this region since 1886.
Flynn said he decided to run after several residents approached him concerned with the county’s direction. “There are a number of people who feel we’ve forgotten about them,” he said, including business owners and community members. “We’ve been focusing our efforts on developing areas for new businesses to come in rather than helping the businesses that are here.”
Residents were also concerned with leadership on council, he continued. Staff members feel intimidated by council interference, and meeting chairs seem to change the rules they run under from meeting to meeting.
“What we have been doing is not working,” he said. “Council isn’t very unified, and we need leadership to pull it together.”
Council had also failed to build its relationships with regional governments such as St. Albert, he continued. “You have to find opportunities to work together and we haven’t been doing that.”
Flynn pitched himself as a skilled collaborator who had spent many years building relationships with local leaders. “We can’t operate as a community on our own. We’re part of a region that has to grow together.”
These same skills would help pull council together, he said, something that hasn’t happened in the past. “We have to re-establish effective leadership,” he said, pitching himself as someone who’d be at all the meetings and work with the majority of council.
When asked what he had accomplished in office, Flynn pointed to his push to have the county build more of its own roads instead of contracting them out – a move the recent Road Construction Survey suggested could save the county about $2.5 million a year (based on 10 kilometres a year and $250,000 saved per kilometre). He also pushed for the redevelopment of Starkey Road, work on which is set to start next year.
He was also behind a move to start mediation efforts between St. Albert and Sturgeon County, and introduced a moratorium on new subdivisions around Cardiff in response to local concerns.
“It’s easy for some communities that have lots of money to buy things,” Flynn said, “but unless we roll up our sleeves and work together we don’t build community.” Communities like RiviÄŤre Qui Barre had active agricultural societies and volunteers, and he wanted to see more of that activity throughout the county.
Flynn said he would work with the community services board to encourage residents to get involved with community groups.
He would also direct the economic development department to come up with new plans to help small businesses grow. One idea he suggested would be to create an event like the annual Ag Services tour that would promote local businesses.
Flynn was a founding director of the St. Albert Community Foundation and a past-president of the St. Albert Breakfast Lions Club, Cardiff Golf & Country Club and Morinville Curling Club. In 2005, he received an Alberta Centennial Medal in recognition for his community service.
County residents are looking for leadership they can respect, Flynn said. “They’re looking for a common-sense kind of leader in the county, and that’s what I represent.”
The Gazette will profile other mayoral candidates as they come forward.s
