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Terrace city council candidate: Stacey Tyers

City of Terrace: Tyers, Stacey – Council Candidate
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Stacey Tyers is seeking re-election as a Terrace city councillor in the 2014 municipal election.

Stacey Tyers, seeking her second term on Terrace city council, first ran in 2011 because she felt the city wasn't paying attention to social issues.

And the specific item which prompted her candidacy then was the city's decision to provide money to My Mountain Co-op, the local group formed to buy the financially-troubled Shames Mountain ski development west of the city.

"I just felt the city wasn't doing enough about social issues yet it was willing to provide money to the co-op," she said.

At the same time, the city was charging some social services agencies rent for city space yet others were paying a $1 a year, Tyers adds.

"I just didn't feel the city priorities were aligned," she said.

From the Lower Mainland, Tyers, 38, moved to Terrace ten-and-a-half years ago when her now ex-spouse purchased Just Kiddin, an indoor children's playground which has since closed.

She also had family in the city and more family in McBride.

"We did a count and I think we made up about five per cent of the population of McBride," said Tyers of the community east of Prince George.

Tyers at one time was the executive director of the Terrace Anti Poverty Group, a social services agency which no longer exists. It was financially supported by the Law Foundation of B.C. which then moved an annual grant to the Terrace and District Community Services Society, creating the position of poverty law advocate which Tyers has held for nearly five years.

"I'm excited about what has been done but there's more work to do," says Tyers of city projects. "You can't address problems unless you acknowledge they are still there."

Tops on Tyers' council to-do list is housing and, specifically, housing for middle or low income earners.

It's not the city's specific responsibility to build or provide housing but it can encourage builders and societies seeking to do just that, she says.

The city's affordable housing fund, which is still being developed and which is to be financed by sales of existing city property and by a bed tax on any work camps erected at its industrial park, is one example, Tyers added.

She also pointed to one part of the deal selling city land to Calgary-based Coast to Coast of land along Kenney for a large rental housing project.

"Twenty per cent of the units are to be offered at 20 per cent below market value as affordable housing," Tyers noted. "Coast to Coast will still make money on those units, only 20 per cent less."

Tyers was nominated by Tanya Gauvin and Alexandra Loggin.