1. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
2. What part of Quesnel’s Official Community Plan do you care about most and want to see action on?
3. What solutions or ways forward do you see to address concerns around crime, affordable housing, transportation infrastructure and homelessness in our community?
4. What do you think needs to be done to attract and retain professionals such as health care providers in our community?
5. What are a few fun facts about yourself?
1. I am a husband, father of seven, landowner, landlord, painting contractor, Youth Lounge director, and a Sunday school teacher. Politically, I consider myself to be a social conservative, which means I value fiscal responsibility and entrepreneurship so that we can fund necessary and effective social programs and infrastructure development from the excess of community-created abundance.
2. If I have to narrow it down to one section of the plan, I care most about agriculture. I would love to see action taken to support local healthy food production through composting, seed sharing, perennial propagation, community gardening, and locally taught classes and courses in gardening and agriculture.
3. I plan to address these interconnected issues by addressing the underlying issues of increased cost of living, basic needs security (food, water, health etc.) and employment issues simultaneously. To do this, we’ll create living wage employment through publicly owned, privately-run, profitable businesses that will produce a steady revenue stream for the city and provide goods, and later services, at an affordable rate to lower residents’ cost of living. Once these businesses are established, we will use their revenue to lower and then eliminate residential property tax, water and sewer bills, and pay for effective social programs with perpetual revenue. Eventually, we will be able to not only cover residents’ city-related expenses but also give everyone an annual rebate and build a community wealth fund for future residents to live off the interest of. The businesses I plan on funding from our surplus first, are a community composting facility, greenhouses, and grain-milling. These businesses will directly address employment, food security and cost of living issues, as the compost and food production will be sold locally at cost plus 10 per cent. They will also create revenue to subsidize residents’ taxes, social programs and infrastructure development by selling excess production elsewhere at market rates.
4. I believe that building a more financially attractive community (lower taxes and utilities), with a lower crime rate, will massively contribute to our attraction and retention of professionals, and any other type of resident. We also need to attract and retain trades since we have far fewer tradespersons per capita than the Vancouver area. Residents need access to necessary services of all kinds, from doctors to plumbers.
5. I once lived and taught English in a refugee camp in Thailand. I go cliff-jumping for fun and generally just enjoy being with my family.
Do you have something to add to this story, or something else we should report on? Email: rebecca.dyok@quesnelobserver.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.