WESTLOCK – Two-term Town of Westlock Coun. John Shoemaker won’t seek reelection this fall, saying he’s satisfied with the work he and council have been able to complete.
The recently semi-retired 65-year-old accountant pointed to a long-list of accomplishments during his eight years on council and says he’s now ready to step out of the limelight.
Shoemaker, who moved to town in 1984 and is originally from Ontario, finished second in votes in both the 2013 and 2017 municipal elections behind only Curtis Snell, netting 1,032 ballots in 2013 and 767 in 2017.
“It was great and I’m glad I did it, but I just don’t want to do it again. I’m not a politician, I’m not a polished person. I’m very opinionated and very passionate about what I believe in. I say what I feel and I always have,” said Shoemaker, who’s been an accountant for 42 years and had audited the town’s books for about a decade prior to running for office.
“To be honest I didn’t want to run for a second term, but (mayor) Ralph (Leriger) had asked me and said, ‘John, look, I need someone I can trust with numbers. When you explain it, I can understand it. I need a numbers guy.’ So I told him I’d run for a second term, but not to ask me again. And to his credit, he hasn’t,” he continued, adding councillors Randy Wold and Murtaza Jamaly are equally good with numbers and can easily fill his shoes.
And while discussions around the council table have sometimes become heated, that hasn’t stopped council from working together as a harmonious group.
“We’ve been so fortunate that we’ve had a council that’s gotten along. I’ve heard of so many councils where the vote is 4-3. Certainly we’ve had disagreements over issues, but the thing that’s been good is that once it was voted on and passed, it was always a council decision. It’s been great that way, it truly has. I have so much respect for all of them. We weren’t perfect and I don’t think anyone of us believes that we are, but we tried our damndest,” he continued.
“We have a great mayor, we’ve been fortunate. Ralph is super. I mean you’ve seen it, we disagree on certain issues, we do, but I still respect the man because his heart is in the right place and he’s always trying to make Westlock a better place. I can follow a guy like that.”
Shoemaker was also quick to point out that any gains the municipality has made have also been due to a spirit of respect and collaboration between not only the councillors, but administration and all of the town’s staff.
“I think council has a pretty good rapport right now with our employees and when we got in I don’t think that was the case. We’ve got great people. Simone (Wiley) is a great CAO. She’s doing a phenomenal job. All of the administration team, I have all the respect in the world for them,” he said. “And our public works people, I think they do a tremendous job.”
Shoemaker says another reason he’s ready to step away is that having a stream of new ideas is important for any board or council and pointed to the 12-member Westlock Terminals board, on which he served, as a benchmark. That group turns over four members every two years, a process Shoemaker says reinvigorates the body.
“We need fresh ideas. Murtaza’s been there for close to seven years and Randy has been there for four, and the rest of us have been there for eight, and in some cases longer, so it’s time to get some fresh ideas,” he said.
Highs and lows
Highs far outnumber the lows for Shoemaker, who was quick to point out that councillors only received two raises over his eight years and have tried to keep any municipal tax increases modest. He’s also especially proud of the town’s stance to stem COVID-19 and the municipal face-covering bylaw council unanimously passed in 2020.
“We tried to keep the tax increases down to a dull roar and I thought we did kind of well there. And I know it might be contentious for many people, but we brought in the mask bylaw and were ahead of the province on that,” he said.
And while the sometimes-fractious relationship between the town and Westlock County has markedly improved, Shoemaker says there’s still work to do.
“It’s improved, but we’ve never gotten to the point where we’d talk about amalgamation or anything of that nature. I hope at some time those relations will continue to improve.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
And as for his biggest regret? Well, it’s a project most won’t expect.
“I wanted to see a splash park, I’m probably the most supportive member of council for one. I wanted to see it right in the parking lot of the swimming pool and I thought that would have been an ideal location for it,” he said.
Hard days to start
Shoemaker bluntly called the start of his council career a “gong show.”
The $19.7 million Rotary Spirit Centre had finally been completed in 2012 with close to $4 million in cost overruns and no capital dollars from the county. As a new councillor he wondered what he had gotten himself into.
“And I’ll be honest, every council meeting we went into camera and there was always a new surprise. I think at that time we probably had three or four legal cases and other issues before council … it was bad. And it was just about every council meeting you were thinking, ‘Oh crap, what’s going to go on this time?’” he said.
“But we had Dean Krause as our CAO and he did a phenomenal job and we had Carol Revega as our administrative assistant, if you will, and she did a phenomenal job as well as (finance director) Julia (Seppola). And with Ralph’s leadership as well as Dean’s it worked out well for us. Dean was very quiet, but he got things done. We got through it.”
The RSC, Shoemaker recalled, put the town in a tough spot financially as many other much-needed infrastructure projects had to be put on hold. In the years since, the massive $5 million Southview rehab project was completed, while in 2021 and 2022 the town, with the help of government grants, is spending close to $12 million on 108th Street and the west industrial stormwater projects.
“Because of taking all the grants and dumping them into the Spirit Centre, a lot of the road work was not done in town. So some of the first things we did was to have engineers come in and analyze all of our structures — within the first year and a half I’m guessing we spent close to a million-and-a-half just on roof repairs for our facilities. And we as a council decided that we would put about $1 million a year into road work.
“So looking back, I think that this is a council that has spent a lot of effort and focused on infrastructure and maintaining the assets we have. We’re tracking a lot of data for asset management and it’s going to pay dividends in the future.”
The stormwater project is particularly important, he noted, as the August 2016 flood was a devasting event that caused millions of dollars in damages to homes and businesses alike.
“As for the stormwater project, over the past 12 years I’ve had two sewer backups and one burst water pipe in the winter so my basement has been totally redone three times, literally right down to the studs. It’s not a lot of fun so I can totally relate to the people whose basements were flooded.”
