Just Announced...Council Candidates...

Want to congratulate Nancy Bepple, Peter Sharp, and Adam Lupasko for putting their names forward to run for council this year.

I know Nancy and Peter pretty well. Peter was a member of council, and lost by only a couple of hundred votes last time. Nancy also ran last time and also came quite close to the cutoff, compared to the other candidates who did not secure a seat.

I don't think I have met Adam yet, but he seems like a very strong candidate as well. I am really excited about his plans to encourage more young people to get involved. I will be trying to do the same.

More from the Kamloops Daily News:

“I’m young, I’m blue collar, but I still have the education behind me.”

He has been to a couple of City council meetings already and feels he has some idea of what he’d be getting into.

“I believe there are four elements to any community: economic, social, cultural and family,” he said. “Any elected official has a duty to make sure those four are in balance.”

Lupasko said he sees too much construction going on and not enough community supports, like the programs offered through the Boys and Girls Club.

He said there’s too much single-family housing being built in comparison with multi-family — a ratio he believes council should be debating or controlling better.

He is also keen on alternative energy sources, and thinks the City should be exploring those more, especially solar.

Even higher on his list of goals is to generate interest in voting, particularly among the younger set. Lupasko said he even hopes to host a session at Thompson Rivers University this fall aimed at stressing the importance of youth in politics.

Voter turnout was at 48 per cent in 2005, and Lupasko said he hopes to do something to boost that percentage this year.

“I’m doing it for the experience. If I get in, great.”

Comments

[Tina]

I voted for you in the last city electon, but am having second thoughts this time around. Before you started you knew not everyone would agree with you. In this business you have to have a thick skin and be able to ignore some comments. It is like having hecklers at a meeting. You are too much about you, and not enough about the job you were elected to do. In my opinion you are acting like a child and you need to grow up.

[Jim Nauss]

I believe I will vote for you this election. I am not a big fan of John O'Fee or Terry Lake. I also do not like Lake's use of office to publicly chastise a member of council for having opinions.

By the by, I think this forum is good, but anonymous forums are not necessarily the best option as it leaves the door open for certain people with agendas to abuse the system. Registering personal information while using a made up user name is the norm now for most businesses.