After nine years as mayor, and another 19 years in other political offices, Westlock mayor Bruce Lennon is stepping away from the limelight.
Looking back on the nine years he spent guiding Westlock, as well as the 19 years he spent as a town councillor and a school trustee before that, Lennon said he feels his greatest accomplishment has been building harmony with the other elected representatives in the Westlock area.
“One of my goals is to try to keep a consensus going within council,” he said. “Everyone has their own thing … but as a group, we generally get along fairly well.”
Ultimately, Lennon said being the mayor meant treating people with respect and giving councillors and the community the opportunity to express their views.
“OK, that’s your opinion,” he said, explaining his thought process. “I’m not interested, but you are; let’s see what we can do for you. It keeps everybody on board.”
Lennon added because they only have one vote at the council table, successful mayors have to be good at bridging gaps between themselves and councillors in order to get things accomplished.
“If you alienate the council, you really have no power,” he said.
He said he believes he’s been successful with that goal over the years, which has led directly to a number of initiatives that will benefit Westlock for years to come.
Some of the initiatives Lennon has had a hand in bringing to fruition in Westlock include the affordable housing development on 107 Street on the east side of downtown and the Westlock Rotary Spirit Centre.
However, he said one project has not received the attention from residents that it really deserves.
“Something people don’t talk a lot about, but should be talking about is the regional water,” he said, referring to the Westlock Regional Water Services Commission.
That project started about six to eight years ago, he said, and now is a sturdy system that should provide high quality water to a large area for the next 40 years.
Turning his eyes to the affordable housing complex, Lennon said that was something that has had a positive impact on the community right from the beginning.
“It was a little bit out of the box for Westlock and a small town,” he said.
It was a project Lennon pushed for in the midst of near-zero-per-cent vacancy rates, while taking advantage of the provincial and federal governments looking at ways to reduce homelessness.
Westlock “lucked out” in receiving several large grants from the senior governments, he said, but it still took council diplomacy and a lot of money to see the project through to the end.
“Again council stayed onside, and the town had to kick in $1 million,” he said.
Since the complex opened in 2009, it has allowed people who otherwise would have difficulty finding housing keep a roof over their heads.
As for the Spirit Centre, Lennon said that facility got started when people approached him with the idea, remembering that he had been involved with getting the Westlock Aquatic Centre built.
He encouraged them to create a foundation and push council to get onside with the project. Following a lot of flip-flopping, a plethora of meetings and a few quick breaks, the Spirit Centre now stands as a jewel in the community.
“Everybody you take there can’t believe the building,” he said. “It’s an awesome building and it’s well used. It’s really something the community should be proud of.”
Lennon also spoke about the town taking the initiative to spur on development in the community, citing Aspendale 1 and 2, as well as the commercial development on the south side of Highway 18, east of 108 Avenue, as prime examples.
“We just saw that we had to do something,” he said. “We couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”
All those initiatives, Lennon said, have helped to promote the town’s image as a place to “live, work and play,” is modern and not just a retirement hub.
Ultimately, he said the projects he’s been involved in are all about encouraging people to come to Westlock, and he feels he and the town have been “relatively successful” at doing that.
But, for all the positive aspects of his time as mayor and before that as a councillor, Lennon said there are some things he regrets or wishes had turned out differently.
The first that came to mind was how there could be more co-operation between the town and Westlock County.
There are many positives in that relationship, he stressed, citing the involvement both municipalities have had in the airport, library, physician recruitment and retention, FCSS, the water commission and the regional landfill.
However, while there is an agreement with regards to recreation funding in place until 2014, Lennon is still disappointed with how the Spirit Centre issue was resolved.
“It’s disappointing that we couldn’t convince their residents to convince their council that they should contribute to the Spirit Centre,” he said. “We spend $19 million and 50-60 per cent of usage is the county residents and they don’t contribute capital.”
Another less-than-successful part of Lennon’s time on council is the slow pace of the downtown revitalization plan.
“We’ve taken a couple of kicks at the cat trying to get that revitalized,” he said, explaining different incentives have been offered. “It would be nice to see some more development downtown.”
Lennon’s political career started in 1982, when he was elected as a trustee with the Westlock school division in a byelection.
A former teacher with administration experience, he said he got involved on the political side because he wanted to make a difference in education.
Following his byelection win, Lennon ran in three general elections, serving three years after each win. In 1992, with 10 years under his belt, he decided to move on.
“When you’re on any kind of board for a certain period of time, you just need some rejuvenation, not only for yourself but for the board as well,” he said.
So, he made the decision to run for town council, following through on his preference to remain involved in the community, in large part because it’s a small town.
“You can get more involved and do more things,” he said.
Lennon remained on town council for nine years until stepping down in 2001.
For three years he didn’t do anything political, he said, before running for the mayor’s chair, which was vacant after Shirley Morie’s decision to step down in 2004.
Lennon had a race to run that year, defeating Clem Fagnan and Don Naclia, but in the 2007 and 2010 elections he was acclaimed as mayor.
“You can take it in a very positive way and say, ‘well, people must be happy with my being mayor because no one wants the job,’ or ‘they don’t think I’m doing that bad of a job,’” he said.
Then again, Lennon acknowledged the fact that municipal politics generally doesn’t see considerable turnover unless there is a large, divisive issue at play.
“The sometimes you’ll see council and the mayor caught in the crossfire and (the voters) will say ‘we want a change,’” he said.
With just over two months left in his political career, Lennon said he doesn’t really have any concrete plans for what he’ll do.
“Nothing any more specific other than just taking some time off,” he said.
One thing Lennon does know about his time after he’s out of office is that he’ll have a lot more of it. Without his mayoral duties, he said he will have considerably more free time.
“It will be an adjustment for me,” he said.
