Cariboo Regional District’s Area B (Quesnel West-Bouchie Lake) has three candidates in the running for director, and Bouchie Lake resident Barb Bachmeier is one of them.
Bachmeier has lived in the area since 1995, and has been a volunteer firefighter with the Bouchie Lake Department for 22 years. She’s a carpenter by trade and says she spent 15 years as an investment advisor in Quesnel.
Bachmeier says she was encouraged to run for CRD director by other local citizens.
“People wanted me to run, so I had about eight nominators. I figured, ‘OK, I guess I’ll run.’ They seem to think that I’m fair and that I’ll listen to what their concerns are,” she explains.
Bachmeier has a long list of local issues she things needs to be addressed or advocated for.
Local crime is one, along with community development, the need for high speed internet and better cellular service and the need for a second crossing of the Fraser River.
“If the Narcosli slide is an indication of how fast they will fix the Blackwater Road if it slides into the Fraser River, we have a major problem, because all of our timber supply out there will be going to either Williams Lake or Prince George. So we need to have someone advocating for a second crossing,” she says.
If elected, Bachmeier would also like to advocate for more RCMP officers to cover the rural areas in the North Cariboo.
“The rural districts, which is all of the North Cariboo, pays for nine [officers], one of which is dedicated for the four reserves. So we essentially have eight officers to cover A, B, C and I. That’s too big a jurisdiction.”
Another local safety concern is the fact that Bouchie Lake’s recreation facilities are on one side of the Nazko Highway, and the elementary school is on the other.
“The school would like to have a safe corridor for them to go and use the facilities over there. Horses cross there, kids ride bikes across there… maybe we need to slow it down,” she says. The posted speed limit is 70 kilometres per hour past Bouchie Lake School and the Bouchie Lake Hall, although signs do indicate traffic should slow to 50 if there are people on the highway.
Bachmeier also says she would like to see the construction of seniors’ housing facilities in rural areas, to allow seniors to downsize without leaving their community, and give young people a chance to buy in to some of the neighbourhoods.
She acknowledges that many of the issues on her list are things that need to be advocated for, and are not necessarily achievable at the CRD level.
If elected, Bachmeier hopes to bring together the many community groups working in Area B.
“They don’t always necessarily see eye to eye. [I’d like to] bring them all together … so we are all on the same page and working together – coming up with some common goals.
“Everybody has different ways of doing things. I try to listen and hear what people say and what they want,” she says.
READ MORE: Seven candidates vie for CRD directorships near Quesnel
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