Peter Milobar: “I think when you do things in a well-thought-out and orderly fashion, that’s what it looks like. It looks like we’re not doing anything — and that’s a good thing to my mind. It means we’re taking the responsible, and fiscally responsible, way of moving a project forward.”
Peter Milobar’s word of choice to describe his vision for the next four years?
“Forward.”
The incumbent mayor made a pitch for momentum as he rolled out his platform on Oct. 17 at Library Square, pledging to continue work on a downtown arts centre and other city projects currently on the books.
“That’s really what I’m all about, is moving projects forward over the next four years,” Milobar said.
But, don’t expect to see a performing-arts centre crop up overnight in Milobar’s vision.
Answering critics who claim he and his council have accomplished little since being elected in 2011, Milobar said it’s a sign of a group that makes logical, careful decisions rather than a group lacking vision.
“I think when you do things in a well-thought-out and orderly fashion, that’s what it looks like,” he said.
“It looks like we’re not doing anything — and that’s a good thing to my mind. It means we’re taking the responsible, and fiscally responsible, way of moving a project forward.”
Milobar said he would use a third term as mayor to push for more commercial development on the North Shore, a second phase of improvements and expansion at Royal Inland Hospital and a downtown Thompson Rivers University campus at Stuart Wood elementary, which will close as an elementary school in 2016.
Though the city and TRU have only just agreed to explore using the school as a campus, Milobar said it’s his first choice for the future of the space.
“Not only would it provide a great public space downtown, but it would bring a lot of vibrancy in terms of kids who are anywhere from university aged, nine to 24, and you’d have the university professors down there as well,” he said.
He said many of the projects would also help to diversify the city’s economy, which is another of his platform planks.
Milobar also pointed to an emergency water intake on the North Thompson River, another project in the works, and an increase in light-industrial activities as priorities for a third term.
Besides his own pitch to voters, Milobar asked the public to elect a council that will be willing to work on the projects he is envisioning.
“They will all require a team around the council table that wants to work progressively on things, and not find roadblocks to things,” he said.
“And that’s what I really hope we’ll find, is a very diverse council sitting around the table that wants to work co-operatively.”
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