REMEMBRANCE DAY Take Time to Remember
SPORTS: Snowmobile Club
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Mayor debate
WE Remember
By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Cadets Mackenzie and Jonathan Jaspers sell poppies for Remembrance Day. Poppies commemorate the men and women who have been killed serving in the military. This year remembrance includes 24-year-old Cpl. Nathan Cirillo who was shot while on ceremonial guard duty at the Canadian National War Memorial in Ottawa Oct. 22.
Over 120 people came to hear from candidates running for Houston mayor and council at the “All Candidates” meeting last Tuesday. Mayor candidates Shane Brienen and Bill Holmberg were the targets for most questions. Below are some of their questions and answers. With the closure of Houston Forest Products and the resulting loss in District revenue, will you raise taxes or reduce services? If reduce services, where will you start? Brienen: It’s about balance. Rather then jump taxes up 15 percent or drop a ton of services, we’re looking for an area in the middle. We will continue to provide as much services as we can, and there will be tax increases. In the five year plan, taxes increase between 2.5 and 3 percent every year for the next five years. We are looking at ways to bring that
Jackie Lieuwen/Houston Today
down, but it’s going to be a very tight budget. So far, we’ve chosen not to replace retiring staff and cut some hours at the pool and rink. Holmberg: We’ve started reducing costs already by not replacing senior staff who retired. We’re also looking at reducing hours at the pool. Every year we raise taxes from two to three percent. We’re going to try to keep that at a minimum. Our focus will be to attract investment and promote secondary manufacturing so that we don’t have to burden taxpayers. What will you do to promote secondary industry? Holmberg: First we need to get answers from the forest service about Morice River Timber Supply. Once we know volumes, then we can work on secondary industry. We’re talking to Canfor and they are looking at ideas to help get some smaller secondary industry in place. See VOTE on Page 2
Councillor candidates answer local questions By Jackie Lieuwen Houston Today
Councillor candidates were asked a variety of questions from the crowd at the All Candidates meeting last Tuesday. Below are some questions and answers from candidates running for councillor the
next four years. What does 24/7 health care mean and how will you accomplish this? Tom Stringfellow: For years we’ve had a really difficult time opening the door to 24/7 health care. One thing I’ve looked into is a community paramedicine program,
newly announced in 2014. It’s an agreement between the Province and Ambulance paramedics that’s going to roll out in the next five years. There’s 80 new paramedic jobs provincially and a $50,000 fund for rural and remote areas. Community paramedics can perform rou-
tine treatments in your own home as opposed to being carried off to Smithers or Burns Lake. The intent of the program is to fill service gaps, not replace existing services. We should pursue it with the Provincial Government and get ourselves at the top of the list for one of these
HAPPY
positions. What more can Houston do to help promote tourism? Jonathan Van Barneveld: I’m a director on the Houston Hikers Society, which manages most of the hiking trails and the development of the mountain bike trails on Mount Harry
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Davis. Houston is an untapped gem, and when you put it on paper, we actually have more to do here then Smithers, but it seems that Smithers has been really good at marketing themselves. When it comes to tourism we need to show the aspects that we do have. Houston has
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just developed a very professional tourism guide and I think we can go endless places with that. As well as promoting ourselves, we also need to work regionally with tourism. It’s about cooperation, about showing the north and showing who we are. See ASK on Page 7
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