There are 21 people running for six seats on Maple Ridge city council, and voters got a look at their many options on Tuesday night, as the Webster’s Corners Community Association hosted an all-candidates meeting.
The news is offering a sampling of quotes from the evening, on a variety of topics including homelessness, development, infrastructure, and taxation.
Korleen Carreras: “I would encourage every single candidate running for council to read that (schools) strategic facilities plan, know where our schools are, see where we want to expand them, see where the crunches are in our community. It’s one of the pieces I do want to bring – my knowledge of the school district – to the city for better planning for communities.”
Rajinder Chhina: “I believe that there has to be transparency, there has to be collaboration. You have to have a vision. You have to work together with people, in order to bring change.”
Onyeka Dozie: “I was here four years ago talking to you people about my ambition to get to city hall. And it’s regrettable to say that all those things that I saw some four years ago, that drove me into this race, they’re still there, and they’re still there big time. This time around I want to remind you of the failed promises that you received from people.”
Judy Dueck: “I think our community social safety initiative, and our housing action plan, is the key to ensuring we support the very people who find themselves on the street. So housing is definitely a piece of that, affordable housing, but treatment and support as well.”
Bhupinder Johar: “For homelessness, I think most important is youth education, mental health, affordable housing, and making sure that those people are living safe.”
Lou Jose: “When I eventually retire, and I will at some point, I do not want to be paying $550 per month in property taxes and driving an hour to services in other cities because we’ve housed over all our commercial property that should have been used for new medical, office, and government buildings.”
Robert Masse: “There are tent encampments in our community now. There are in every community. The answer is mental health. I’ve been a mental health advocate since the ‘90s. I did create a social enterprise and donated almost $40,000 for youth mental health over the past couple years.”
Chelsa Meadus: “When we were first elected, we had a homeless camp, and a community that felt unheard. Within less than a year we closed that camp, built a collaborative relationship with the RCMP, and set municipal police priorities. We delivered the Community Social Safety Initiative – a program being copied by 15 other municipalities.”
Chris O’Brian: “In 10 years I foresee Webster’s Corners having possibly a college, university, and retail outlets, and possibly an indoor swimming pool and recreation centre.”
Leah Pillet: “Growth and development should follow planning, rather than planning to play catch-up. Ambitious developers can make money this way, but the community suffers, from the erosion of the semi-rural character that has long been the most desirable feature for residing in Maple Ridge, and from the constant scramble to provide the necessary services, infrastructure and roadwork in hindsight.”
Andre Roberge: “We have to diversify our tax base by attracting more businesses. We rely so heavily on our residents to pay the taxes to fund our projects, and too often it feels like we’re paying more and getting less. It’s time to get more for Maple Ridge.”
Jeff Roberts: “I know how frustrating it was when I was told I was going to get something and I never did. I was told that certain events or certain infrastructures were going to be there, and they never did. My kids were four and six at the time. They’re 23 and 21 now. I haven’t seen anything change.”
Sunny Schiller: “The decisions made in the next four years, especially around development, are going to determine what this area looks like in the next 10 and the next 20 years. As I’ve been out campaigning I’ve heard from many people that they are experiencing a lot of residential development, but the infrastructure, services, and commercial and retail development are not keeping up.”
Craig Speirs: “My top priorities are modernizing our OCP and our zoning bylaw, repairing our relationships with our First Nation neighbours, (and) raising our development cost charges to match what other communities charge. By not raising our DCCs the past council has given a gift of tens of millions of dollars to their developer partners.”
Rebecca Stiles: “Our constituents express what they want, and we need to listen. All of our policies should be driven and informed by climate change, by inclusion, by affordability. We need to lean on those values for every single piece of policy that we build in our city council.”
Jenny Tan: “I’ve been door-knocking from Hammond to Thornhill, and everyone says we need more affordable housing. But no one has said ‘let’s build out Webster’s Corners.’ Let’s have responsible development services.”
Grover Telford: “I’ve seen developments go on in this community that you talk about communication, you talk about public hearings, you have the public hearings, and the council doesn’t listen. They go ahead with it anyway – Yennadon, North Alouette – come on, that’s not right. That’s a disrespect for the public.”
Ahmed Yousef: “Having served during this first term, and what a first term it’s been – pandemic, investigations, lawsuits – you name it, it’s been quite an exciting first term. And I’m back for more, a glutton for punishment.”
Jeffrey Martin, Sarah Little and Ryan Svendsen did not attend.
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