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Meet the Candidates: Fred Romano

City of Trail: Romano, Fred – Councillor Candidate

Fred RomanoI have been married for 40 years to Lynn (Dimock) and we have three grown children.

I graduated from BCIT in Business Administration and obtained a CGA Diploma.  I returned to Trail to work at West Kootenay Power for seven years. I then joined Cominco (Teck) for 30 years in various senior accounting positions.

I was Acting Mayor during the 100th birthday of our city and it was an honor to be representing the citizens on this historical occasion.

As a former councillor, I was appointed by the mayor to chair parks and recreation and finance.

I was appointed by council as the regional director for two years. I was on the committee who negotiated the recreation agreements with Beaver Valley and Warfield. Regional relationships were a lot better in 2011 than they are now.

As Chair of Finance we left the city in a very strong financial position at the end of 2011 as reported in the news.

The number one challenge currently facing the city is attracting new businesses in the Greater Trail area and creating jobs so the young people do not have to move away to find work.

We have to attract investment in downtown to give our citizens an option to downsize into a riverside condo development.  People want to live downtown close to all the amenities.

Trail has very valuable land overlooking the river.

Development on those properties is crucial to bring the downtown back to life. New residential development and more people downtown will attract new businesses and developers to invest into our community.

Economic development in our city should be council driven.

The two most important challenges in the new council’s mandate are to get agreements on recreation with our regional partners and to mitigate an agreement with Beaver Valley on Area A Expansion.  The ideal situation is to come to agreements before the 2015 budgets are finalized.

To resolve the recreation issue, we have to identify the true regional facilities and include them in a regional budget.  The stakeholders need to negotiate a funding formula and set up a governance model.

A mediated agreement on Boundary Expansion has to be negotiated by the stakeholders. We have to finalize it and move forward together.

We need the issues that we have been facing for the last three years resolved.  Elected councils and regional directors need to spend their time on other issues.

Challenges are facing all local governments and working together we can get more accomplished.