BARRHEAD-Shauna Zeldenrust is hoping to follow in her father's footsteps.
Last week Zeldenrust officially announced that she was making a bid for the Town of Barrhead council.
Her father, Roy Ulmer, was a fixture of Barrhead municipal politics for nearly 16 years, serving first as a county councillor, then with the town.
"It is something I have been thinking of for some time, but the timing wasn't right," she said, adding she wanted to wait until her children Joel and Chesney were a little older. "My dad has also been very encouraging."
His support is one of the reasons why Zeldenrust made sure one of the names on her nomination papers was her father’s.
"It just seemed right," she said.
Zeldenrust spent her childhood in Barrhead going to Neerlandia Public Christian School for elementary and then Lorne Jenken High School.
When she was 18, she left for post-secondary attending the Canadian Lutheran Bible Institute in Camrose before transferring to Augustana University College, which is now part of the University of Alberta, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in history.
For the last seven years, she has been working with the Blue Heron Support Services Association (BHSSA) as a disability support worker.
After graduating, she worked as a youth worker in Cochrane and Winnipeg before returning to Barrhead 10 years later.
"I thought it was only going to be for a short time," she said.
However, the stint kept getting longer, in part because she met her future husband.
In addition to working at BHSSA, Zeldenrust has been active in the community volunteering with her church and her children's schools.
And although this will be the first time Zelenrust has entered into the world of municipal politics, she has worked as a campaign worker for the NDP at the provincial and federal levels. She is also a member of the NDP constituency association for the Athabasca-Barrhead-Westlock riding.
Issues and challenges
Zeldenrust said one of the issues facing the town and the region is maintaining its population at all age levels.
"We need services for our seniors and things to keep young families here," she said, adding the building of the aquatics centre was a step in the right direction as is the proposed all-wheel park.
Zeldenrust also stressed the need to maintain and retain the recreation spaces the municipality already has, specifically the parks.
She added that council must continue to look for ways to increase economic opportunities for their residents.
"Housing is important to me," Zeldenrust. "People think rural Alberta is affordable, but for many people, especially if they are renting, it is getting more and more unaffordable. I think that is something municipal governments can look at, by having more [housing] available."
She also noted that municipal governments can lobby and pressure the federal and especially the provincial governments for more programs that make more housing programs.
If elected, Zeldenrust said she hopes to focus on safety, specifically looking at ways to help reduce property crime.
She pointed to the Barrhead and Area Crime Coalition (BARCC) as one of the mechanisms that could be accomplished.
BARCC is a partnership between Woodlands County, the Town of Barrhead and the County of Barrhead, as well as the Barrhead RCMP and Rural Crime Watch.
It was formed in the spring of 2018, in part due to discussions Peace River-Westlock MP Arnold Viersen had with all parties, to come up with initiatives to combat rural crime.
One of its most prominent features being an alert system where its member organizations can send out information alerts to residents signed up to the service.
However, she noted criminal activity is the end cause of societal problems such as poverty, drug addiction, mental illness and that municipalities need to work to improve supports systems in place.
She pointed to the Barrhead Pregnancy Care Centre (BPCC) as an example.
BPCC is a not-for-profit agency that provides counselling and other services to mothers and fathers dealing with an unexpected pregnancy. The centre is a branch of the Christian-based Edmonton Pregnancy Care Centre (EPCC).
The centre is currently fundraising in the hopes to open a home for expectant mothers.
"If you are proactive and these supports are in the community, you help address the root cause,” she said.
Zeldenrust admits that this is a difficult task as municipalities are under increasing financial pressure from the downloading of responsibilities from the provincial government, most notably an increase in the percentage they have to pay for policing and the reduction of Municipal Sustainability Initiative (MSI) funding.
"We can't be afraid to give them [the province] a little bit of a kickback because communities give and do so much," she said.
On the policing front, she also states she supports the town's position of supporting the RCMP. The province is floating the possibility of creating its own Alberta Police Force.
She also is a big proponent of the police having a student resource officer in the schools.
"It is just another example of police and municipalities being proactive."
For more information about Zeldenrus's election campaign, contact her at 780-305-4152 or e-mail [email protected]. You can also look for her on Facebook.
Barry Kerton, TownandCountryToday.com
