Rob Gay, Electoral Director for Area C of the Regional District of East Kootenay has announced that he will seek his fifth term at the election on October 20. Gay shared a press release document that outlined his intentions and goals for the upcoming election, stating:
“I believe that after 13 years as Area C Director I have the knowledge, skills judgement and character to help ensure our residents continue to receive effective and efficient service and fair treatment. I have learned that democratic institutions, like our RDEK, required committed Directors and dedicated staff to function well. I stand by my record.”
Gay also outlined four strategic priorities he hopes to achieve, were he to be elected for another term, which are climate change, world class communications, transparent, open and participative government, and to help community champions.
Speaking to the issue of climate change, Gay said, “we see it in all aspects of our work and i think we need to be in front of that a little bit because we see so many areas of the world that it’s ruining their businesses it’s ruining a lot of things so we need to educate ourselves and so just as the world evolves I want us to stay with it and help this area evolve as well.”
He said that along with achieving a number of firsts, one of the things he has been proud of from his past four terms as Electoral Director is the transparency the RDEK has maintained. As well as providing agendas to the media and to the public in advance of their meetings, he also mentioned their quarterly budget review and their check register.
“You can see every check we write,” Gay said, “we don’t have to provide this information it’s just something that as a regional district we want to do and the residents can see what we’re up to.”
Gay further discussed his priority of world class communications saying that without strong internet services, regional government is unable to properly protect the public.
“We really saw that last year during the fire season in the work some of our staff did. And not only our staff but other communications experts, so that’s really important.”
Listing other important factors such as business and health, Gay said that the RDEK knows the value of internet and of cellular phones and said that they will strive to get affordable, high-speed broadband internet to all the residents in the area that want it — within reason.
Looking back on his time in the position and what lessons he has learned, Gay said that it has been “quite an eye opener in terms of professional development.”
“I’ve tried to educate myself to be able to to be on top of the issues as well as understand what some of the other regions and areas of the province and actually of the world are doing in certain areas.”