Terry Halifax
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Oct 02/00) - The North will say goodbye to two long-time public servants this fall, when new mayors are elected in Hay River and Inuvik.

Jack Rowe in Hay River and George Roach in Inuvik have both decided not to seek re-election.

After 12 years as both councillor and mayor, Rowe said he wants to pursue some business interests and leave public life before he gets stale.

"I'm still working well with council and find Hay River a nice place to be, so I don't want to pursue it to such a degree that everybody here doesn't agree with you so, it's time to leave," said Rowe, who has lived almost his entire life in the North.

Rowe has always supported moving jobs from the capital to other communities. He believes that only through decentralization will the North flourish.

"Otherwise we'll end up with a population of 35,000 people in Yellowknife and an outside of Yellowknife, about eight to 10,000," he said. "With that concentration, what you'll see, is very little investment capital coming North.

"Industry will not want to go into these other communities, because they will have to sustain all the services in those communities."

He said the decline in community-based health care services will continue as the treatment costs soar through medevacs.

"It becomes cheaper to put everybody up in social housing in Yellowknife and leave them there," he said.

Rowe said his biggest accomplishment was the good working relationship he maintained with council.

George Roach

At the other end of the territory, Inuvik's George Roach has made his retirement plans.

"I'm going to drink beer and play golf as God intended me to," Roach laughed.

Roach came North in 1973 to work as a teacher in Tuktoyaktuk. He moved to Inuvik in 1976, and has lived there ever since.

He came out of retirement to run for mayor after sitting in on many meetings as a Social Studies teacher. Roach also sat on many other boards and is looking forward to some time off.

"I put in two terms and I feel that's enough time for one person to be mayor," Roach said.

"I haven't accomplished everything I set out to accomplish, but as a rule most will come to fruition.

"I wanted to get the transfer of all commissioner's lands within our boundaries to the municipality," he said. "The land claims are all settled here so there is nothing to hold it up."

One of the things he's most proud of, is the completion of the Midnight Sun Recreation Complex.

"The completion of the rec complex was something council deserves a lot of credit for," he said. "It took three plebiscites to get it through and it took the last two councils to get the money to pay for it."

Another coup for the town during his tenure, was transferring control of the utilidor to the town from NTPC.

"Instead of millions of dollars flowing to Hay River and then sent on to Yellowknife as profit, we will be able to manage that utility."

Roach is sure prosperity is again on its way to the Delta, but thinks that unlike the boom of the Eighties, this will be a period of sustained growth.

"I'd hope we're smarter about it now and the aboriginal groups are more in tune and have a good sense of the business," he said. "It's long overdue; the town's been on the skids for a few years and it's been a struggle."

"We're not putting all our eggs in one basket either," Roach said. "Tourism is a 100 year deal and a pipeline is a 20 year deal."

He plans to spend much of the winter in Blythe, California, a small town near Palm Springs.