Magrath council reflects on first year since election

By Erika Mathieu
Westwind Weekly News

“It’s been a year of a lot of learning, you know, not having done this before, the way I look at it now is very different from when I originally ran in a good way,” said Councillor Ken Baker to council in his opening prayer and reflections.
“There’s just a lot that goes into it,” Baker said during the Oct. 11 regular council meeting. Although there has been some highlights over the past year, Baker added, “there’s definitely some issues that I still think we’ve talked about and just need to be addressed.”
Baker reflected that he thinks council has, “started on a good role around like creating subcommittees around different topics and issues,” but said there is a number of issues which still require council’s focus to ensure solutions.
“Can I say that I feel we’ve made our community safer in the course of the last year? I don’t know.”
While some of the the bigger issues on council’s docket, “can’t be solved within a year,” Baker offered the question to council, “are we laying the foundation to solve them?”
Baker also posited whether regular board updates during council meetings, “is the best use of time in going through and looking at some of the problems that we really want to solve.”
With plenty of items to work on in the remaining three years of the council term, Baker said he is, “excited to get into the second year knowing what we know now and really kind of tackle some of the issues that I think are before us,”
Baker concluded his reflection to council reiterating the council’s mandate to improve the Town for residents through strong municipal governance. “The reason that we’re here and doing this is to make Magrath a better place, and safer, place on more inclusive place in a place that people want to come to and be a part of.
“Now that we’ve kind of got that crazy busyness of one year under our belt, I’m looking forward to to what this next year can bring and how we can, how we can further that.”