Westlock County reeve and Coun. Charles Navratil is running for a chance to represent Division 4 at the council table.
Navratil made the announcement during the Aug. 27 county council meeting. He is the first incumbent councillor from the county, town or village of Clyde to announce he or she is running for another term.
“I’m enjoying what I’m doing, and if the people are still thinking I’m still doing a decent job, I’d really like their support,” he said.
Navratil has been a councillor for the last nine years, and has been dedicated to the job since Day 1; he said his dedication won’t wane if he is voted in for a fourth term.
“If I am successful again, I will be as committed as I have been in the last nine years,” he said. “I believe if you’re going to be there, you should be committed to do the job.”
In those nine years, he has been involved in many initiatives to move the county forward, but one really sticks out in his mind — improving the municipality’s financial standing.
Some people may be upset the county raised taxes to do it, but ultimately Navratil said what matters is that “we run a balanced budget.”
In his first term, the county had to approach its bank to have its borrowing limit increased. Now, he said, the bank has approached the county to lower that limit, with the understanding it could be raised again if needed.
Improving the county’s financial picture has saved the municipality a lot of money, especially on the operations side of the books.
“The last couple of years we haven’t had to borrow money to operate,” Navratil said.
Even though he has been involved with many major and minor projects over the last nine years, Navratil said there are still many things he wants to see through, two of which are the new Tawatinaw ski chalet and the planned Clyde fire hall.
Of course, there is also the amalgamation debate.
“I would like to see us carry on with that study and get the information out there,” he said. “We’ve got to get the public educated and ourselves educated before we can really say it’s good, or it’s bad.”
