Mayor Survey

Brad Magee:

I have never served on council but I bring with me a different perspective. I worked in the oilfield for 18 years in management and supervisory roles. These roles taught me teamwork, accountability, personnel relations, time management as well as the importance of communication between all levels of staff. With these skills I will work to communicate with our citizens how our city is going to move forward, that we can do it together, all while holding myself and city council accountable for our actions.

Ken Johnston:

I have broad experience both in the private sector with a 40 year career in banking, and 25 years of cross community volunteer work that has exposed me to all sectors of our city. I am also a two term Councillor and very familiar with the operating and capital requirements, my loss, economic development, and strategies at City Hall.

Buck Buchanan:

I am a (4) four term Councillor first elected in 2007 and again in 2010 and 2013 and 2017 as a result of the experience I believe I have the skills required to be elected as Mayor. I also spent (28) twenty-eight years in the RCMP in many different locations that prepared me for this role.

Brad Magee:

Our biggest issues are crime, homelessness, job loss and business closure, as well as our hospital expansion. These are all major issues that are not answered easily. I will approach these issues with city council as a whole, as I feel these are all things that need the city to work together as one. I will push for us to educate ourselves about these issues, have the conversations with the respective programs involved and consult the citizens before and serious decisions are made. We will work together as a team to ensure our provincial government understands our needs, that need to be handled quickly, without taking years to complete. While I believe in moving forward in a decisive manner, it is also important that we ensure we’ve met the needs of the people these issues affect the most.

Ken Johnston:

There are no shortage of issues! I have prioritized economic development and our unemployment rate of 10% as a top issue but close behind would be the downtown and it's revitalization and the social disorder we find ourselves needing to solve.

Buck Buchanan:

Right now I think our community is divided over the pandemic issue and as a community we have to come together again and support each other. I also believe that Crime and Safety is an issue and lot of focus on that has been placed on the Downtown we have talked about this issue for years and I have some changes I think we can make to address this situation, hopefully creating some more Economic Development helping to solve some of these issues.

Brad Magee:

I believe the role of municipal government is to look after the city, it’s citizens, and our businesses first. I feel that the current city council has not been doing enough. There are changes to bylaws that hurt businesses, while some businesses were denied expansion. Our citizens need jobs and an income. Holding our business owners back hurts our local economy and our tax base.

Ken Johnston:

Ideally the role of Municipal Govt is to provide good basic services and amenities, promote our business and location and ensure a good quality of life for everyone. Unfortunately both the Provincial and Federal Govt have abandoned leadership in so many of their jurisdictions that Cities find themselves drawn in to provide or quasi provide them. Examples are housing and health care. Great question, we find ourselves doing too much with too little.

Buck Buchanan:

The role of the Municipal Government in my opinion is to be a Service provider, I think we are invested in several Services and we need to figure out which Services we should be providing and which Services should be contracted out.

Brad Magee:

Right now I feel that our taxes do not represent our current state of economy. In a time when people are struggling the most, our city has decided to make no changes to our tax system. Property values have declined, while property taxes stayed the same as last year.

Ken Johnston:

Another great question. It's all about value for taxes and a fair return for our money. I would say given the scope of services and the challenges I spoke of in question 3, we are just right.

Buck Buchanan:

Property Taxes are virtually the only form of income the City has and I believe this is not sustainable especially when other forms of Government are downloading their responsibilities. We presently receive 10 cents of the tax dollar and supply 60% of the infrastructure this cannot continue, we need to either get a larger piece of the taxation or get a smaller piece of the infrastructure.

Brad Magee:

I don’t believe we have a strong enough tax base currently to increase our spending, especially since we are so close to our current debt cap. We need to stop certain projects that are not a need for the city, and invest into our current infrastructure to help boost our own local economy.

Ken Johnston:

This is difficult to answer from the perspective that the rate of inflation defined in the CPI is not the same rate as the Municipality faces. For example the cost of concrete, lumber and steel. And if a project is being built for a future need or to attract development that has a spending impact. the best measure is what hits you in the wallet. Is the City finding ways to cut expenses while continuing to invest in it's core business of streets, water, utilities and amenities.

Buck Buchanan:

I think the City has to look a doing business differently, in my opinion we have a difficult time at looking at doing things differently. Presently in my opinion we seem to believe our capacity is dependent on human resourcing, the pandemic to a degree has forced some changes in that area and I dont think our overall Service level has dropped. If we did do things differently we may decrease our spending, without compromising services.

Brad Magee:

I believe in a combination of the two. Housing is one of the biggest expense for any individual. We will work with our current system to put a cap on rental costs. This will help our vulnerable population either find housing or maintain what they currently have. If we can afford to in our current budget do a subsidy then yes I will support that motion. One thing I would like the city do is work on building more carriage homes. The advantage to a carriage home is significant. They are typically lower cost rental homes, in a neighbourhood close to amenities within walking distance. For some, the difference of 400 a month in rent is the “make or break” between affordability or homelessness.

Ken Johnston:

See Question 3. Housing is a shared mandate of the Province and the Feds. The City should not be subsidizing housing unless it's a combination of business investment with a housing component and that is not subsidized housing but market (i.e. housing at standard market rates) housing. Typically our City would fund transitional housing or subsidized housing through the Provincial or Federal programs that we are given a fee to administer. We do that through the Community Housing Advisory Board.

Buck Buchanan:

"Affordable Housing" is an interesting term and we have various models, the Housing First model has been the virtual impossible to house (The Old Buffalo) and is now the Amethyst House this model is being supported by the Canadian Mental Health and I think they are doing a very good job with folks that have addiction and mental health issues. Affordable Housing is generally below market value and that number can vary from place to place. Right now the issue is Housing Stock and this is not totally a Municipal Issue the Federal Goverment has made promises regarding Housing and as they recieve 60 cents on every Tax dollar they are in a much better position to supply Stock. Presently the Housing initiative is supported with flow through dollars from the other forms of Government but the money is never enough. I think we should also have a single point of entry for Affordable housing and this has gotten much better but is still not where it should be in my opinion.

Brad Magee:

We have a great central location in Alberta which is a significant incentive on its own. Within the diversity part of my platform, I want to offer tax breaks and incentives to any and all businesses within the city. Both established and new businesses will benefit from this. A business that is struggling may find the extra capital they need to keep their doors open, while new businesses while find the cost less to get to their opening day. These incentives will last for one year, in which they will have been able to keep that capital in their accounts, or use it for certain things to help their business move forward. There will be specific requirements that will need to be met in order to qualify for this incentive.

Ken Johnston:

The best attraction for business is a friendly open for business climate with low or no red tape. But there are times when incentives play a role and those incentives are lower taxes that must equate to a net return on investment in jobs and economic activity.

Buck Buchanan:

I think we need to know what businesses need, I have been told by business People that Red Deer can be difficult to deal with in the permitting process (Red Tape), we need to rectify this. Council has been told that this is getting better and quicker but we are not there yet. I would like to see a Mayors Task Force formed to advise as to what we could do exactly to try to answer your question.

Brad Magee:

No. There are many facets to our policing that have not been explored to date. Our current new constables are being trained by officers with one year on the force. I will push to ensure new officers are trained by officers with at least five years on the job. This will aid inadequate training for new officers. We will also work together with our police chief and commissioner to ensure that our concerns are heard. We are also going to utilize all the data collected from our city, to push the provincial government to make the changes needed to our justice system. The provincial government has been making changes but it has been a slow process. I am also going to advocate for a community service program for our lesser offenders and a GPS monitored program for our more serious offenders. Our citizens have had enough of the “slap on the wrist” program. We need to push for harder deterrents to crime.

Ken Johnston:

Care must be taken when we say "defund the police". We simply can't do an ad hoc cut to the police budget. Crime rates and case loads are decreasing in Red Deer so there's an opportunity if this trend continues and in my view that would be at least a three year trend, to reduce the size of the force. This step would only make sense if we had a strong crime prevention program, a judicial system with a drug court and enough prosecutors in combination with the decreasing stats.

Buck Buchanan:

No - I do think the City should have more input into the resourcing issue presently we only have about 50% of our Resources doing Front Line or Response Policing (if there is going to be an issue this is where it will be for Council), I think as a Council we should have more direction over that. I have suggested a Constables Committee in the past and this has been resisted by the Senior Management, my hope for this would be that the people doing the Front Line Services would be heard by Council and be able to address issues that they might be dealing with possibly By-Laws could be structured to assist or Resourcing Issues or Equipment issues may be addressed. In my opinion if we don't know what the problems are how can we try to fix them.

Brad Magee:

Absolutely!! After watching a fire truck and ambulance do three circles around the downtown core yesterday we need the dispatch back in the central zone. I would ask for the stats on the wait time since the change to show the difference since this change. I would take that information to our provincial government to prove that it doesn’t work. These wait times can mean the difference between life and death.

Ken Johnston:

Simply put, lives are at stake, yours and mine under a centralized dispatch. It is such a vital issue that our City has even offered to pay for the retention. More and more Alberta towns are discovering the centralized model is inferior. I would stay on top of this file and continue to partner with Calgary, Lethbridge and Wood Buffalo as well as many other towns to get it back. This service will return to us . I just hope it isn't a result of an unneeded death or deaths.

Buck Buchanan:

Yes - I think this is a Service Level Issue and I think we want to do the best we can for the Citizens we Service, right now I don't think this is the case and in a situation where seconds count I think it is paramount that you get the Service to that location as quickly as you can. The system that was in place provided that response where the new system does not have that local knowledge. Right now a Task Force created by the Province is studying this situation but my concern is that the people at the table are being muzzled with their concerns not sure how you resolve that situation within the Provincial Government.

Brad Magee:

I am not affiliated with any political parties. I don’t feel that it was a good idea to be involved by any political party. I want to represent the city based on the needs of the city, not the desires of an outside political agenda. I will say that the candidates I voted for do not currently sit on council except one. I voted for the candidates I feel would advocate for the change to our city council we all need.

Ken Johnston:

Thank you for your latitude on this question. As a potential Mayor I have to work with all my Council candidates. That's also true for my relationship with the Province and the Federal Govt. Municipal Govt is free from party affiliation. That's what makes it so effective in my view.

Buck Buchanan:

I don't think it is right to tell people whom I am voting for, and it is Public knowldege that I ran for the nomination for the Conservative Party for Red Deer North, in my opinion this was a greasy process and we will leave it @ that, I was then approcahed by the WildRose Party and ran in Red Deer North so I don't think it would surprise anyone if I said I was Conservative. I am very disappointed with our present UCP Government so do not have any affiliation with any Party at this time.