“I felt there needed to be an opportunity for the voters to decide,”
That’s from George Funk who is one of three people running for the Mayor’s chair in Vanderhoof.
Funk told Vista Radio that if he gets voted in on October 15th, the role of the district when making crucial decisions would change.
“To me, it’s a team effort between mayor and council and community. My feeling is that I would rather accommodate change than make a change. The government doesn’t usually make the best decisions when it comes to change.”
“Private enterprise is usually best suited at making change.”
He added it was a last-minute decision to make a run at the mayor’s job, which is being vacated by Gerry Thiessen after a 14-year stint.
“I had several people approach me to see if I would consider. I said if they needed an answer today the answer would be no but I am not going to say no if I have time to think about it. It took me almost three months to make up my mind and I didn’t until about the last 15 minutes.”
“I considered running for council but I guess I was more encouraged to run for the mayor’s chair than for council.”
Funk adds the district is in need of several levels of housing from apartment buildings to multi-family dwellings.
He also wants to find a way to expand the local agriculture sector as he is a longtime logger and rancher.
“I guess I would just be one of those that would encourage the agricultural world to expand as we have a lot of room for that yet and that creates probably the best stability in our community.”
Ken Holden and Kevin Moutray are the other two candidates running for the mayor’s job in Vanderhoof.