Having lost by just 12 votes to Jeff Hammond to be the Thornhill director on the Kitimat-Stikine regional district board in 2018, Ted Ramsey is back.
And this time he has a definite goal — setting out a self-governance future for Thornhill that’s independent of the regional district.
“It’s time,” said Ramsey who before his defeat by Hammond four years ago, served as Thornhill’s director on the regional district for three straight terms.
“Thornhill needs to grow up and it needs to grow up now.”
Ramsey sat on the regional district board during the creation of the Northwest B.C. Resource Benefits Alliance, a coalition of local governments in the region lobbying the provincial government for a share of the resource taxation dollars which now flow south.
When a revenue-sharing deal is reached, and Ramsey is confident it will, Thornhill needs to be ready, he said.
“We need to have local governance in place to manage that money. You have to have that,” Ramsey said in anticipation of Thornhill’s portion of a benefits deal.
He also dismisses notions that there’s no money as it is to provide basic community services such as sewers in Thornhill.
“There’s 25 per cent dollars,” said Ramsey. That’s the term used when a senior government contributes 75 per cent of a project’s costs if a local government can come up with the other 25 per cent.
“There are grants we can utilize for Thornhill.”
As with many people who live in Thornhill, Ramsey is sensitive to its geographic closeness to Terrace with the result that Thornhill is often not recognized.
“When the roundabout was announced, we sent the provincial government a map to remind them where it was located,” he said of the regional district board in noting the Hwy16/37 traffic circle is located in Thornhill.
Ramsey thinks the same naming challenge will arise when the provincial government’s $35 million high-tech weigh scale station is finished in Thornhill.
And he’s fully on board with the grassroots campaign to include Thornhill on provincial highway mileage marker signs.
Ramsey’s also quick to remind Terrace residents that Thornhill helps the city pay for its recreational amenities such as the library and sports facilities through taxation levies.
“People like to say we don’t pay our fair share, but we do,” he said.
It’s a relationship Ramsey sees continuing after Thornhill reaches self-government status.
“We really need to work together,” he said. “I love Terrace but I live in Thornhill.”
Born in Manitoba, Ramsey moved to Thornhill from Hinton, Alberta in 1970 after a brother told him of the work opportunities in the region. By 1974 he was clearing $5,000 a month working in the woods.
“I like to think I’m a Thornhill boy through and through,” said Ramsey who celebrated his 73rd birthday in September.