For the eighth term, Councillor Phil Meagher will aim to keep his Ward 1 council seat.
Bringing 22 ½ years of experience to the council chambers, Meagher is seeking re-election this fall.
“I was encouraged by a lot of people to run and I think the reason why, is the experience I bring and some people just said ‘we know what we get in you'”, said Meagher.
Meagher believes you can get more done on the inside than you can on the outside.
“You get heard on the inside and you can take those people who want to have their voices heard and bring it to attention,” he added.
Meagher’s campaign slogan this time around is “Securing our Future”.
He believes something that will be different for this council is the tax regime.
“Our tax regime is going to change and it is going to change drastically with Bill 21 and the implementation of Bill 8 that eliminating us from being grandfathered,” said Meagher. “Going from 18:1 to 5:1 is going to be a shocker.”
Council voted on Sept. 13 to ask the province to allow a 10-year transition plan to reach the 5:1 ratio.
Meagher pointed out that the plan will go – if you include the council right now-it will go through four different councils.
“I don’t know what it is going to look like in 10 years’ time, but I know that life is going to be a little different than what we have right now in Fort McMurray,” said Meagher. “If we are going to keep reasonable services there is going to be inevitable taxes increases somewhere.”
Meagher said he isn’t running for mayor this time, but maybe next.
“A mayor gets a vote and a councillor gets a vote, so I think I can have just as big influence,” he added.
He also noted that following Mayor Blake will be a tough job to do.
The municipal election is on Oct. 16.
