Lawrence Giffin thinks Morinville needs more room to grow and has to do something to keep taxes down.
To that end the 60-year-old owner of Coach’s Corner Sports Bar will make a run for town council for the Oct. 21 municipal election.
“I’ve always been a person who likes to contribute and make a difference,” Giffin said. “I worked in industry all my life and I was always in a leadership position. That was kind of my specialty. I went to places that needed help.”
Giffin moved to Morinville four years ago from High Level, wanting to be close to his daughter, who was living in St. Albert. He had previously worked as a manager on the TransCanada pipeline.
Giffin says he doesn’t have a lot of ideas of his own for the campaign, saying “the issues will come up with people’s concerns and people’s ideas.”
He does, however, have a few of his own, first of which is keeping taxes down. He wants Morinville to keep its small town spirit, but admits it needs room to grow as well.
“Not only for housing, but also commercial and industrial space,” Giffin said. “Morinville is at a crossroads. It is becoming a city. It will be a city soon. With that, it needs to look at infrastructure and recreation facilities.”
Giffin also thinks it’s time Cardiff became a part of Morinville.
“It’s a community that’s affected by every decision that Morinville makes, yet it has no say.”
Giffin was critical of council’s decision to wait until the end of August to appoint a new mayor in the wake of Paul Krauskopf’s death at the end of June. Town council voted 3-2 to continue with Coun. Lisa Holmes as deputy mayor until the end of August, at which time it will choose an interim mayor.
“I think that was a mistake,” said Giffin. “The issue for me is Lisa Holmes is running for mayor and it just doesn’t seem right to me that a person who is running for mayor just is mayor by default. I don’t think she should put herself in that position.”
Giffin currently serves as vice president of the Lions Club. He says he has mostly handed off operation of Coach’s Corner to his son Abram and has the time to commit to working as a councillor.
“I feel that council would take up a lot of time and, if elected, I would commit a lot of time to it.”
