Sharon Jackson has spent six terms on Duncan city council, and she gave great consideration before deciding to try for a seventh term.
Since she was first elected in 1996, Jackson has seen a lot of changes, and has done her best to evolve with the demands of a council that has seen many responsibilities downloaded from the provincial government. "I'm always learning," she said. "I'm always striving and trying to figure out what the best procedures are."
If she is re-elected, Jackson wants to address the redevelopment of the Trans-Canada Highway and get the Active Transportation Plan going, as well as create an advisory design panel for downtown.
"We're too small a town not to have an advisory design panel," she said. "It wouldn't take much to ruin the ambience of downtown Duncan."
Jackson also wants to make sure that youth and seniors are heard, and that more is done to assist the homeless, and other groups that lack voices at the council table.
"We need to look at everything from not just the perspective of able people, but people that have challenges," she said.
There is more that city council needs to address than simply taxes and infrastructure, Jackson insists.
"I will strongly resist the recent move by some to return to the 1950s and focus on sewer, sidewalks, water and roads alone," she said.
"We don't live in that kind of a world anymore. And I, for one, don't want to."