Jorge Barrera
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (May 30/01) - Former city councillor and mayoralty candidate Cheryl Best said she's enjoying her private life but is still looking for a way to channel her energies.
Sitting at Broadway Restaurant drinking a coffee and dressed every inch a corporate executive, Best said she is working for the NWT Development Corporation, and is looking for a way to focus her creative energies.
"I was thinking of working with the SPCA or the women's shelter," said Best.
"I'm looking for a place to affect change," she said.
Even though she lost the mayor's race last fall, Best said politics is still not out of her system.
"If you care about a community you can't help but be political," she said.
Best said it was too early to say if she would run for office again at the next election.
Currently Best said she has a lot on her plate as business advisor responsible for venture investment for the corporation. She often travels to outside communities analyzing the economic potential of local businesses.
The biggest challenge she said was finding people with the background and expertise to run businesses in the communities.
"There are people with great ideas but not the business acumen," she said.
Best is also dealing with a lawsuit she filed involving her last business venture.
She wouldn't disclose particulars because the matter is scheduled to hit the courts soon.
"I got screwed over," she said. Best is also currently renovating her home on 54th Sreet.
"I have a beautiful yard that deserves a porch," she said.
A councillor first elected in 1997, Best said women in the North are still fighting a glass ceiling. Aside from Coun. Wendy Bisaro and city clerk Debbie Euchner, men disproportionately occupy positions of authority --bureaucratic or elected -- at City Hall.
"Yellowknife tends to be a bit backward," said Best.
"It used to be a common occurrence across Canada that women didn't get the power jobs," she said.
Best said many women have to juggle a full-time job and home care and don't have the time to enter into the political arena.
"Women get their feelings hurt easier," she said.
Best said the most amusing part about dropping out of the public spotlight was people actually thought she had left town. She said close acquaintances reacted in surprise when running into her at the grocery store.
"I think because I was no longer in politics and no longer on the A list, I wasn't invited to all the functions. I think my absence was noticed," she said.
