A strong working relationship with his peers, an effective strategic plan for the municipality and the close connections made with residents highlight the last four years for Town of Westlock mayor Ralph Leriger, who will run again in the Oct. 16 municipal election.
“I’ve enjoyed it a great deal,” he said. “We’ve had some great successes in council over the years.”
Absorbing the costs of policing, maintaining an adequate water supply and addressing the town’s storm water drainage were major challenges facing the community that he would like to tackle in a second term.
Leriger, who is the first person to officially announce his intention to run for mayor, said the comradery between town councillors has helped spark growth over the last four years.
One area where Leriger said he felt this current council had done exceedingly well in was in establishing a strategy and sticking to it.
“We did a lot of work early in the term and I think that’s the most important thing for any council,” he said. “If you want to have accomplishments, you need to have a plan.”
Leriger said that council first determined where the goalposts were going to be four years down the line and then established how they were going to reach them. Council made a number of major hiring decisions to help move towards that goal and stuck to the plan.
The most successful part of the strategy for Leriger was the town’s growth ambitions. With a number of new businesses setting up shop while much of the province has struggled and with plans to build two new neighbourhoods, their work speaks for itself.
“The growth strategy has really come along and that excites me quite a bit.”
Also on Leriger’s list of accomplishments was a number of policy and funding bylaws, such as establishing the off-site levy bylaw and nearly doubling the town’s reserve funds, that will help council with future plans.
He also cited the town’s efforts to repair and replace its aging infrastructure — especially getting work done on the Southview neighbourhood — as a point he was exceedingly proud of.
“We’ve been working away at our aging infrastructure. It’s not sexy, but looking after your assets is critical to long term success,” he said.
“As well, we’ve had clean audits. I’m very proud of that, our administrative staff have shown a great deal of discipline.”
He cited the hosting of the BP Cup championship this spring and the Rotary Club’s annual conference as a strong indicator of the town’s rising profile.
“We’ve celebrated well as a community, our 100th year celebration was a great success,” said Leriger. “We’re starting to promote ourselves.”
Looking forward, Leriger noted the town had already begun negotiations with the RCMP to take over the costs of policing which is now the town’s responsibility after surpassing a population of 5,000.
In addition to preparing to replace the aging Eastglen Water Tower with a modern reservoir, the town is also undergoing a major engineering study to determine what it can do to deal about the increasingly wet and stormy climate to minimize property damage.
“We’re getting the same amount of rain as we used to, but boy some it is coming in a heck of a hurry,” he said, adding that he would continue to push the province for more funding to help municipalities meet their needs.
“We don’t need a grant model, we need a funding model. Through the granting program we’re forced to compete for available dollars instead of planning properly.”
Leriger said he felt one of the most rewarding parts of being mayor was being able to look back at what’s been accomplished.
“I’m a guy who is results driven. What I like so very much about this is that you get immediate feedback on your results. You can stand back at the end of the day and say today we accomplished this. That’s quite rewarding.”
