Red Deer is a great, beautiful and progressive city but it is not a big city. That is why I question the need for a ward system.
Edmonton and Calgary have some wards that have more that 90,000 voters in one ward.
Red Deer has eight councillors for just under 100,000 population.
You can get across Red Deer in approximately 15 minutes. It would probably take upwards of half an hour to cross some of the wards in these big cities.
In Red Deer, we pretty well know what’s going on in our city because of it’s size.
In the big cities, the citizens probably don’t care or know what’s going on in a ward that they rarely go into or have never been in.
In a growing city like Red Deer, you might be in Ward 1 this election and Ward 3 the next election, because the boundaries of a ward normally can’t be 10 percent bigger than another.
I think the administration costs alone would make it prohibitive for a city our size.
If you have been to any of the election forums we’ve had so far, you will see we have 30 very capable candidates running. Now it’s up to us to pay attention or get involved so we elect the best eight.
Saskatoon had a population of over 200,000 when they brought in the ward system in 2009.
I don’t think change for the sake of change is a good reason, but population growth may be a reason in the future.
If you agree with this, vote no for ward system on election day.
Not yet Red Deer, not yet!
Leo Leonard
Red Deer