Another familiar face to those involved in St. Albert politics has joined the municipal byelection race.
Edward Ramsden, 26, is running for the council seat vacated by Gilles Prefontaine.
He said St. Albert’s been being torn down by negativity.
“I think it’s time to start building it back up. The negativity has to end and we need to get back to work,” Ramsden said. “It’s just about making St. Albert a place where people can thrive in.”
Ramsden has been involved through the community via volunteering and owning his business, EnviroMasters Lawn Care. He grew up in St. Albert.
“I think I’m ready to use my voice on city council,” Ramsden said.
He highlighted accountability and transparency as current big issues in the community.
He said a lot of the information the city has is already online, but it could be easier for people to find and understand.
The council code of conduct needs to be updated to deal with both the circumstances of Prefontaine’s resignation – he quit to take a job with the city – and the general conduct of council, he said.
“I think most people in the city are kind of getting fed up with the personal attacks on city council that just go over the line. People want council to be accountable but not have personal attacks on each other,” Ramsden said.
He wants to see it easier to do business here, and is in favour of getting more land and attracting more companies to St. Albert so that non-residential taxes can help ease the burden for residential ratepayers.
Ramsden would also like to see less red tape for opening a business in St. Albert.
He’s interested in empowering the community, a term he said could “mean everything from working more closely with the non-profits in the city to also ensuring that St. Albert is a generational place to live.”
There needs to be a variety of housing options so that people at all stages of life can live here, he said.
For that reason he is pro-DARP (downtown area revitalization plan).
“It would help attract younger families here, it would help students stay here,” he said, adding he sees a need for more density downtown.
He acknowledged he’s the youngest face in the race so far, and said while the city is doing great work with its social master plan and involving the youth, he wants to see more young people involved.
“I think there’s now a need for the youth to have a voice in actually directing policy,” Ramsden said, suggesting St. Albert could resurrect the youth council.
Asked about the utilities fiscal policy, he said he is in favour of the plan to phase out the use of the provincial Municipal Sustainability Initiative grant and he’d prefer to use the portion that was going towards utilities instead for capital projects like building and maintaining roads, sidewalks and trails.
“It’s not clear what the new provincial government is going to do with MSI in the first place,” Ramsden said, though he acknowledged that while no one likes to pay more, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea to temporarily reduce utility rates.
