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Values are key to mayoral hopeful

JENNIFER LEWIS wants to be Terrace’s first female mayor, saying she has the experience, knowledge and values to be a leader.
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JENNIFER Lewis

JENNIFER LEWIS wants to be Terrace’s first female mayor, saying she has the experience, knowledge and values to be a leader.

“Big grandiose plans need to be tempered,” she said, noting she plans to bring a grounded approach to council. “The back room deals have been done.”

“I want to bring that positive light back.”

Lewis said her motivation to run is tied the dissolution of the Terrace Tourism Society in 2007, an action that ended her employment with the society. She was its executive director and was on maternity leave at the time the society was dissolved.

She’s particularly unhappy with the role current mayor Dave Pernarowski played in the dissolution of the society and subsequent loss of her job.

Pernarowski was the lead member of a three-member dissolution committee and oversaw the transfer of the assets of the society to a new city-backed entity, the Kermodei Tourism Society.

Lewis is also disappointed about how the city is handling the development of its Skeena Industrial Park just south of the airport.

Tree clearing done for the city in preparation for eventual industrial or other construction also destroyed what was a prime mushroom picking area, she said.

“Now that it’s down, let’s load it up with  greenhouses,” she said, noting that local agriculture could be not only a great resource for the  area but that it could supply the northwest.

Lewis said she will provide all the facts to the community so it and the city can make educated decisions.

An example of the city doing something without the involvement of the community was the raising of taxes after the 2008 municipal election, she said.

Taxpayers, including those on fixed incomes, were left paying for what she says were grandiose plans.

Lewis also does not agree with the idea of increasing the pay of Terrace’s mayor.

“We pay really good money for the city to meet its goals and objectives,” she said.

She would rather the value of the raise go toward furthering a student’s education.