A retired social worker has spent decades trying to work toward solutions in challenging situations. It’s experience that she thinks will serve her well if she’s elected to Nanaimo city council.
Alexis Petersen has announced that she’s running in the municipal government election this fall.
“There are very definite ways to collaborate and deal with conflict in a win-win way and work with people in a team to come up with solutions,” she said. “And our city council doesn’t seem to have been able to do that. I think that we’ve had four years of not being collaborative and working with the people of Nanaimo and I very much would like to do that.”
Petersen was a social worker for 35 years, including 20 years with the Ministry for Children and Family Development.
After retirement, she was looking for new challenges and said she was “very excited” upon joining the City of Nanaimo’s public safety committee a year and a half ago. But instead, she’s seen “missed opportunity,” she said.
“I think we were all hoping to be able to give our input and our knowledge of the city and help city council to make some of the decisions that they need to make,” Petersen said. “I think it could be a really good forum for that kind of citizen participation, but I’m not quite sure what’s happening to the work that we do.”
She said city council has been caught up with “crisis issues” and haven’t been able to pay attention to some of the other topics she thinks are important.
Housing in all its forms will be something Petersen will be talking about on the campaign trail. She’d like to see more evidence that the city is working toward supportive housing solutions, as she says the supportive housing complexes that already exist in the city aren’t causing issues and shouldn’t be connected with some of what people are seeing on the streets.
Another platform issue she mentioned is a desire to see further work done related to the transportation plan and expansion of bike lanes around the city.
Petersen acknowledged it will be a challenge to try to stand out and be elected from a lengthy ballot of candidates.
“All I can do is try and put myself and my face out there and talk about what I stand for everywhere I go…” she said. “If I’m elected to council I certainly promise that I will be a very conscientious worker, I will listen to the people, I will work collaboratively and I will try to make the people of Nanaimo proud.”
To read interviews with other local government election candidates, click here.
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