For those of you that did not attend the all-candidates forum in Trail last Tuesday night you may have missed a real opportunity to hear some very good candidates for Trail City Council and School District #20.
Both institutions need an injection of some new blood and listening to some younger voices like Sean Mackinlay and Kevin Jolly you could not help but come away believing these young guys deserve to be on our next city council.
Sean Mackinlay may not be well known, only having lived here for two years, but has a very good grasp of many of the important issues that are holding us back. He has seen similar problems elsewhere and appears to have some solutions to move forward.
Kevin Jolly also brings in an outside perspective while living here for the past twelve years. He has taken lead roles on several important local committees the last six years and brings some business acumen to the table.
They are backed up by others like Rick Georgetti and Brian Deferro whom have lived in the area all of their lives. Rick and Brian also voiced their commitment to change as they felt our municipal politicians need to move forward on many important issues and what has been done in the past needs to be improved upon.
Ray Furlotte has previous local council experience in Warfield a few years ago and states he has the ability to work with members of other local councils which may be an asset considering how parochial all of our municipalities have become.
For the school trustee position the new guy on the block is Terry Hanik who has expressed a commitment to not having any more local elementary schools closed while appearing to be a realist on the future of Rossland Senior Secondary. This could be the assistance Mark Wilson needs to advance equitable treatment and funding for all students in the district while looking at reducing the number of trustees on the board.
The present board has one long time serving member on the board that does not even have a school of any type in his area of representation.
Lorraine Manning has over twenty years of experience on the board and has done it all but like some councillors in Trail can hold her head high for what she has accomplished knowing it is not a bad time to hand over the torch. All in all a very good slate for voters choices on the municipal ballots this week.
More importantly though get out and vote and turn around the declining interest shown over the last few elections. Municipal elections give each one of us the greatest say in who we want spending our tax dollars over the next three years.
John Hudak
Trail