Name: Ted Greves
Age: 63
Occupation/background: Retired professional firefighter, teacher, former professional athlete.
Why are you running for public office?
As an incumbent my reasons for running for re-election have not changed drastically since my by-election in 2011. My interest in local government began as the president of the Nanaimo Professional Firefighters and my interaction with the city and then becoming further educated by completing the Local Government Administration program through Capilano College.
I would like to continue to be involved with the important decisions affecting my community and remain committed to implementing the important six priorities that have been listed in our 2012-2015 Corporate Strategic Plan such as water, transportation and mobility, etc.
What three priorities are important to you and how do you plan to tackle these issues, if elected?
Water: I am a member of the Protocol Agreement Working Group with Mayor Ruttan and Coun. Diane Brennan and meet with the SFN. Water is of utmost importance to the First Nations and hopefully we can come to some arrangement to increase our city’s water source within the near future.
Transportation: I will continue to work with staff on the Transportation Advisory Committee to implement the recommendations set out in the recently adopted Transportation Master Plan.
Governance: Through our governance interviews stemming from our strategic plan, Taking Responsibility, to enhance our governance I believe we found that we needed to improve our governance. I am the chairman of the Governance Review Steering Committee and we still have important work to do in this area.
How do you plan to manage taxes and spending?
We deliberate each year at budget time in a collaborative atmosphere as a council with a great amount of advice and help from our professional staff and we are very cognitive of the importance of property taxes. Council unanimously voted for a one per cent increase in each year of our five year plan, so that is a given. There are other important issues that we will have to address shortly such as water and a possible future dam so taxes will be a big issue in the future.
What do you think it takes to lead Nanaimo? Describe you leadership or co-working style.
It takes a council with a collective vision which we have achieved through much community input resulting in a strategic plan. It is in the community’s best interest that council adheres to it. My style is a team approach with good debate to hopefully a positive outcome.