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Tough mayor race in Fort Resolution

Herb Mathisen
Northern News Services
Published Monday, November 28, 2011

DENINU KU'E/FORT RESOLUTION
With all three candidates possessing ample council experience, the choice for mayor in Fort Resolution will come down to the issues.

In interviews last week, Patrick Simon, Carol Ann Chaplin and Garry Bailey each emphasized the importance of maximizing the hamlet's core funding from the territorial government.

However, environmental protection, revamped recreation programming and intergovernmental relationship-building were highlighted respectively by Simon, Chaplin and Bailey as their key areas of focus if elected.

Bailey, the current president of the Fort Resolution Metis Council, said he hopes to strengthen ties between the Metis council, the Deninu Ku'e First Nation and the hamlet, to allow the community to develop projects collectively.

"As soon as we respect each other, we will be able to move forward as a healthy community," he said.

Bailey, who described himself as "fair," is a lifelong resident of Fort Resolution. He has spent eight years as a community councillor and been involved in politics - as either a lands and resources negotiator or a councillor - since he was 19.

"The main thing is that I would represent the whole community," he said. "You can't make everybody happy, but we can try."

Bailey, the hamlet's deputy mayor, said his dream would be to pave the community's roads, adding the dust caused by gravel roads each summer is tough on elders in particular.

Chaplin, a hamlet councillor in her second term, wants to retool the hamlet's recreational programming to make it more inclusive.

"The thing that is most important to me is recreation and revamping their programming to make sure that our programs are being well-utilized and we are providing what people actually want and use," she said, adding she would like to see more family and adult-oriented activities organized.

Chaplin, a mother of four who has lived in the community for 18 years, counted her experience, financial background and education as assets. She has a management studies diploma from Aurora College.

She said council also needs to continue to be clear and transparent, so residents "are confident that we are doing everything that we possibly can in our

community." She said she would look for extra funds from other agencies to put towards the hamlet's "limited budget."

Simon, the band's environment manager, wants the community to emphasize its water monitoring and sewage processing in order to continue to protect its water. He sees a link between the community's environmental issues and residents' health.

"We seem to think we have just as much cancer here as Fort Chipewyan and we think it might be for the same reason," he said, adding that he wants to create partnerships with other groups affected by Alberta's oil sands to increase awareness of its downstream impacts.

"They are possibly attributing it to what we drink, eat and breathe and they are pointing to what we've got here and what's coming down that river system."

Simon, a band and hamlet councillor off-and-on for the past 20 years, also wants to raise the profile of soil contamination issues - byproducts of fuel storage sites and a federal government fuel line that ran through the community in the 1960s - in order to get the sites cleaned up.

Incumbent mayor Elizabeth Ann McKay is not seeking reelection.

Thirteen candidates will also be vying for six councillor positions in the election. The top three vote-getting councillors will serve two-year terms, while the next three vote-getters will serve a one-year term.

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