Wesley Ramage says his reason for seeking the McIntyre Ward seat is simple: he wants to help make a better city to live in for him and his family.
The 29-year-old Holy Cross School teacher said the most pressing issue facing the semi-rural section of the city is the infrastructure gap, which he’d like to see addressed as soon as possible.
“The amount of roads that are unpaved in our area is a huge concern for the majority of people that are living out in the rural area of my ward,” Ramage said.
“With the people that are more centrally located, the biggest concerns I’m hearing from them is the road maintenance, how fast roads are getting plowed in the wintertime and how they’re being maintained.”
And the problem doesn’t just exist in his ward, he added.
City wide, while the event centre has dominated election talk, Ramage said there are a number of other issues that demand attention and he’s hoping they don’t fall through the cracks in the shadow of a proposed new hockey rink.
Public safety is first and foremost in his mind.
“I know our crime numbers have been going down, but with the amount of murders we’ve had already this year, I think safety is a huge issue that people are seeing because they don’t necessarily feel safe all the time,” Ramage said.
That said, he does think the event centre is something that “absolutely” should be build and he likes the tack city hall has taken bringing the $114-million project to this point.
Without federal and provincial funding, Ramage isn’t quite as supportive.
“That’s obviously a critical part. There’s no way we can pay for it all by ourselves,” Ramage said. “But I would absolutely continue to support that if I was elected, as long as we got the funding from the provincial and federal government because I do think it would be an economic driver for our city.”
