By Greg Higgins

N.B. council candidate believes new blood is key to successful council future

Oct 15, 2016 | 4:00 PM

A candidate for North Battleford’s city council says he’s tired the way council has been run.

Steven Cormons has never held a political position but said his 30 years of experience in corrections and social services is just what council needs to turn things around. First on his agenda would be flipping the relationship between city departments and council.

“They’ll bring up a point about a cost for something and there might be a few little questions asked but they don’t dig down deep,” Cormons said. “They just trust the [department] managers. I’m not saying they can’t be trusted, we did hire them. I just think we need to analyze the process more.”

After years of budget analysis work for multi-million dollar Social Services contracts, Cormons said he’s qualified to ask the tough questions about North Battlefords financial statements, which he claims are quite vague.

Reducing North Battlefords crime and the perception of poor race relations is also a high priority.

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He recommends more surveillance in hot spots across the town and increased roles for Community Safety Officers (especially overnight) to curb what he calls “car shopping” by criminals.

“We need to make a clear statement from this city that we are not a racist, redneck community,” he said of North Battleford’s perception. “The city needs to co-sponsor a reconciliation event. I attended one in Nipawin and it touched my heart.”

He said if elected he’ll do his part to serve North Battleford with a social conscience to foster better relations between residents.

To give council his full attention, Cormons said he’s retiring next month since it’s impossible for councillors to perform to the best of their abilities when they have full time jobs.

“My wife completely supports me,” Cormons said. “She knows I’m one to rattle cages and that’s exactly what I am going to do. I will be the squeaky wheel, I promise that.”   

Greg Higgins is battlefordsNOW’s city municipal affairs and health reporter. He can be reached at ghiggins@jpbg.ca or tweet him @realgreghiggins.