City of Cranbrook council candidate Gerry Warner thinks he has a better idea for dealing with Cranbrook’s infrastructure woes – let the people get involved.

If elected, Warner says he’ll call for council to set up a special infrastructure committee with citizen participation to examine all the city’s major infrastructure issues, including roads, water, sewer, spray irrigation and the long delayed decision to build an overpass across the tracks to the city’s north side.

“I know it’s an ambitious agenda but I think it’s time we faced up to it,” says Warner. “Obviously we’ll have to deal with these issues in priority and that’s where having taxpayer involvement will be a big benefit.”

Warner says the first thing the infrastructure committee will have to decide is the method by which citizens will be chosen to sit on it. “Council already has a number of citizen advisory committees so I see no reason why it should be difficult to choose another.” Once the citizen committee members are chosen it will be time to roll up the sleeves and get to work, says Warner. “The City already has an Assets Management Plan which would be a real benefit in helping the committee do its work.”

Once the infrastructure needs are prioritized, the task will be to develop a plan to deal with the costs and the costs will no doubt be large, Warner says.

“It won’t be easy. We’re dealing with years of neglect here, but if we don’t get serious now, the situation will only get worse. We obviously can’t do it entirely ourselves, but there’s senior government money to access and I believe there’s other funding out there too if we just look hard enough.”

One of the biggest advantages to fixing the City’s infrastructure problems would be a sense of pride that would surely follow from finally facing up to a job that’s been delayed for years, says Warner.

“We call ourselves the Key City of the Kootenays. If we do this, we will finally deserve the title.”

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