Community Platform

I’m not shy about sharing my ideas. Here you can see my Council Previews where I share my take on major issues before heading into meetings. But we need the entire community working together to build a great Grande Prairie. Which is why my campaign is focused on talking to residents.

My platform lays out what I intend to advocate for if I get re-elected. But I’m always open to pushback or new ideas. As you read my platform, I’d love to hear from you. What do you think our next Council should be focused on? You can always find me on social media or email me at dylan@bressey.ca. I’m also always happy to meet for coffee or have a phone conversation. I want to take your experiences, priorities, and ideas into the next Council term.

VALUES

As I undertake Council work, TRANSPARENCY is key to everything I do. Residents have a right to know what the City is working on and understand why Council makes the decisions it makes. Transparency is key to allowing residents to become good citizens who hold Council to account in elections and have input into decisions throughout the term. To promote transparency, I’ve published Council Meeting previews, spent a great deal of time talking to residents, and advocated for better communications and engagement from the City.

As I transparently do my work, there’s been three primary values that I’ve applied to decisions. My goal on Council is to make Grande Prairie more sustainable, livable, and connected. What I mean by that:

• Sustainable means having what our community needs to be stable and healthy in the long term. This includes a smart and modern approach to regulation, reasonable taxation, professional asset management, and strong regional partnerships.

• Livable means having what we need to go about our lives. This includes safe communities, a healthy economy, robust transportation networks, help for people who need it, and plenty of opportunities for work, education, and play.

• Connected means having residents feel like they are part of a great community. They have many opportunities to meet other residents and build social networks. There is a robust and healthy non-profit system for residents to contribute to and benefit from. And Grande Prairie is a City people can be proud to live in and excited to visit.

Finally, I put a great deal of work into Advocacy. Through my work with Alberta Municipalities, I’m regularly travelling across the province to tell Grande Prairie’s story. This allows me to be part of pushing for our community’s needs to other orders of government and attracting both private and public investment in our region. It also gives me the opportunity to learn about great ideas and best practices to bring back home.

If re-elected, I will maintain my high level of in person and online engagement. I will advocate for:

• A searchable database of Council meeting minutes, agenda packages, and reports so that you can more easily learn about past Council conversations

• Regular “talk to Councillors” tables setup at the Farmers Market or community events

• Bulletin Boards advertising upcoming engagement activities and recent Council decisions prominently placed in City parks and recreation facilities

• Better integration of City communications and dispatch so you can get any information or service you need by remembering just two numbers: 311 & 911

• More prominent advertising of where to access plain language reporting on City finances

• Increased opportunities to attend open houses in order to hear from and give feedback to staff running City services

• A registry of Conflict of Interest declarations by Councillors so that you can easily see if they have recused themselves from decisions without having to search through meeting minutes
  

If re-elected, I intend to advocate for:

• Continued focus on delivering City Services more efficiently and maximizing the impact of every dollar. Like all organisations, the City is seeing escalating costs. It has also faced declining provincial infrastructure funding. But tax rates have been going up far below inflation. This has been largely accomplished through finding efficiencies. But it has also been a result of using reserves, which can’t go on forever. Something has to give. The next Council is either going to need to make hard service cuts or increase taxes beyond inflation. To minimize the impact, extreme care needs to be taken with fiscal management.

• Expanding revenues other than residential taxes. The City spends about what other midsize cities spend per capita, but a large portion of that comes from residential taxes. Cost impacts on families need to be minimized by expanding other revenue sources.

• KPI, benchmarking and performance measurement frameworks so we have objective information that can be used to improve services.

• Asset management. I don’t want to see the community face huge financial road blocks because of poor planning and fiscal discipline now. We need to be taking good care today of our infrastructure. And we need to be taking stock of future large renewal projects and saving for them now to avoid tax shocks in the future.

• Creating a Benefit Based Procurement policy to enable City capital spending to provide better benefits to our local community and economy. Ideas within this policy may include a requirement to source locally when legally allowed to do so, and incentivizing some City Contractors to hire people with barriers to employment.

• Commissioning an independent study to benchmark City salaries against comparable positions in the private and non-profit sectors and other government organisations. An Executive Summary of this study should be publicly released. In the community and at Council, I’ve heard lots of conversations about staff compensation. We should be sure to base these discussions on facts and data, not anecdotes.

• Ensuring the Police Transition continues to progress well. We need to deliver a Police Service that is reliable, professional and effective. Base services that are equivalent to what was offered under the RCMP contract should be delivered at our below the cost of maintaining the RCMP. Investments in enhanced levels of service need to have their benefits carefully weighed to their costs.

• Create a long-term roadmap and fiscal plan for recreation and culture investments as the City grows. We should have a fiscal plan now so that we can build in the future without having a huge impact on taxpayers’ pocket books. Just like we do with road and water infrastructure, we should be strategizing and budgeting for long term growth.

• A risk management framework. The City’s approach is often very risk adverse. And we should never take on un-necessary risk in certain areas including safety and protection of sensitive information. But there are times where we should take more risks than we currently do in order to deliver better or less expensive services. Council should be talking about risk more to insure we are seizing appropriate opportunities.

If re-elected, I will push for us to advocate for:

• The province to fix the disparity in electricity distribution and transmission costs which sees our residents paying far more than their fair share to support provincial infrastructure

• Continuing to focus on spending efficiency and insuring that levels of service are properly set to manage public priorities so that we don’t take in more tax revenue than we need to

• At the same time as we look for spending programs, many municipal programs become even more important as people struggle with affordability. Those without private transportation need to be able to walk, cycle, or take the bus. Parents are more in need of free or highly affordable opportunities for their children. Parks and community events become more critical to mental health as residents are unable to get away for vacation or afford entertainment. And increased struggles for residents mean there is a higher demand on programs that will help. We need to protect these vital services, even while working to contain City spending.

• Continued work to see both market and affordable housing developed in our community

• The expansion of Free Youth Transit to the age of 24 to help our young people get a strong start in their adult lives through reliable transportation

• Working to increase the enrollment of seniors to the City’s Recreation Access Program so that seniors of all income levels have opportunity to be healthy and socially connected

• Strong support of food security programs
  

If re-elected, I intend to advocate for:

• Continued reform to Council’s Community Group Funding framework. Funding decisions should be more transparent, streamlined, and aligned with community priorities. Once funding is set at an appropriate level, it must keep up with population plus inflation growth. Ensuring volunteers and non-profits are adequately supported is a much more cost effective way to build Quality of Life than having the City deliver programs on its own.

• Creating a long term roadmap for the development of major recreation and culture facilities, including a basic fitness and teaching pool on the Avondale site. We do not need major investments now, but we will need them eventually as the City grows. We should have a plan to build them out effectively and without having an undue impact on tax rates.

• Continued tree planting. Few things make a community better to live in than trees. They are also a big part of cutting down on noise from busy roads and managing stormwater. I’m very proud of aggressive work that has been done to increase our number of publicly owned trees.

• Increased staff resources be put into developing and supporting Neighbourhood Associations. If properly fostered, Neighbourhood Associations are an excellent tool to recruit volunteers, raise private funding, and provide advice to the City to enhance their communities.

• Close gaps in the City’s Active Transportation Network. A plan should be put in place to make this happen within the next 5 years.

• Exploration of an indoor park and garden space on the Montrose Cultural Centre site to help residents maintain mental health through our long winters. This could be used to attract private investment in downtown housing.

• Working with community partners to continue enhancing opportunities for young adults without children and seniors to connect with others and have fun. These are two demographics that frequently move from Grande Prairie. Retaining them will help our community and economy.

• Continued support of Maskwa Medical Clinic and other efforts to attract and retain medical professionals to our community and enhance residents’ access to healthcare.

If re-elected, I will push for us to advocate for:

• Reforms to electricity distribution and transmission fees to make life more affordable for our residents and support investment in Northern Alberta.

• Fair funding of midsized cities and regional service hubs like Grande Prairie. The provincial government provides less funding to cities of our size than it does to Calgary, Edmonton, towns, villages, and counties. That isn’t fair, especially when we are delivering so many services that benefit residents beyond our municipal borders.

• Preserving municipal democracy. Whether it is eliminating Councillor Codes of Conduct, moving to introduce municipal political parties, or removing decision making from communities, the province continues to weaken local democracy. These efforts should be reveresed. In the meantime, Councils need to double down on providing excellent governance to maintain their effectiveness.

• Supporting Maskwa Medical Clinics, attracting medical professionals to our community, introducing a catheterization lab at the Grande Prairie Hospital, and funding medical first response by firefighters are some of many ways we should be encouraging the province to enhance medical care for our residents.

• Provincial and federal support of affordable housing. The reversal of provincial decisions to remove resources and supports from people with disabilities. Taking care of people who need help is the right thing to do. But it is also fiscally responsible since it helps them participate in our community and helps keep people out of our hospitals, shelters, care homes, and jails.

If re-elected, I intend to re-run for my role at Alberta Municipalities. This allows me to dedicate lots of time and build key relationships to advocate for the City of Grande Prairie as well as cities, towns and villages across Alberta. Additionally, my role at ABmunis also allows me to serve on the Alberta Municipal Services Corporation Board which provides insurance, employee benefits, electricity, and other services to both the City and local non-profits. I hope to continue having a direct role in ensuring these services are both sustainable and well priced.

If re-elected, I will advocate for:

• Continued investment in addressing accessibility concerns in City facilities.

• Re-instatement of the Barrier Free grant to help commercial buildings become more welcoming to all people. This was discontinued due to low uptake, but I believe that was due to problems with program design more than lack of community interest.

• A new mechanism for people with accessibility challenges to report daily annoyances they are encountering on public property, and for these reports to be prioritized. For example, we can’t cut every curb in Grande Prairie. But we should cut a curb if it is causing daily challenges for someone that needs help.

• Implementing technology to start live Closed Captioning of Council meetings

• Council to stand up to the province for its removal of resources from people with disabilities. We should be advocating for community members who have been hit hard by recent and ongoing changes.

• Closing missing links on the Active Transportation network
  

If re-elected, I will push for us to advocate for:

• Developing partnerships, strategies, and infrastructure to get development happening on airport lands. Some of this land is City owned, which creates revenue opportunities besides property taxes. Additionally, offering proximity to the airport is one “unfair advantage” the City can deploy to attract taxable industrial property into the City.

• Council to better partner with and advocate for arts, culture, and sports groups as well as community non-profits. These organizations are a significant part of our economy and need to be recognized as such.

• Continued efforts to properly manage City expenses to contain tax increases. Appropriately balancing this with the need to maintain the high quality of services Grande Prairie needs to have in order to attract and retain labour.

• Exploration of an indoor park and garden space on the Montrose Cultural Centre site to help residents maintain mental health through our long winters while also attracting development downtown.

• Continuing to improve licensing, permitting, inspection and other City processes so that the City doesn’t stand in the way of starting or growing business.

• Continued strong support of Northwestern Polytechnic’s efforts to innovate and expand its offerings.

• Continued strong support of Maskwa Medical Center and other efforts to enhance healthcare in our region. Not only is healthcare a strong growth opportunity for our economy, but it is also critical to attracting and retaining labour for all sectors.

  
  

If re-elected, I intend to advocate for:

• Working with communities to explore engineering solutions to slow down traffic on problematic residential collector roads, especially those with a school. Solutions could include curb bump-outs for pedestrians, planted medians, or better marking of school and playground zones. When it comes to traffic safety, enforcement should be the last resort.

• Stronger support for Neighbourhood Associations to help residents meet their neighbours. Having connected neighbours is the best defense against crime and the best way to make sure help is immediately available in crises.

• Stronger support of non-profits that help people in crises or offer preventative care to stop crises from happening.

• Slowing down or removing people from our trails that operate bicycles and electric devices at unsafe speeds. Solutions could include better trail marking and signage, set speed limits, better public education, and increased enforcement.

• Closing missing links in our Active Transportation network so people can safely commute by walking, biking, in a wheelchair or pushing a stroller

• Champion the safety and well-being of our LGBTQ+ community, taking action to address the increased risks of harassment, violence, and homelessness they face, and extend this support to all vulnerable residents.

• Ensuring the Grande Prairie Police Service transition continues to roll out smoothly. Ensuring that we have a well trained, highly qualified, professional service that integrates best practices from modern policing.

• Continuing to build out integrated dispatch for police and fire. Advocate for the City to receive a contract to do EMS dispatch so that all emergency services can be accessed without call transfers. Creating strong connections between 911, 211 and 311 so residents who call with non-emergency safety issues can be transferred efficiently.