Evanitski throws hat in ring
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The nominations for deputy mayor in the Municipality of Bayham closed on Friday February 8, and until Friday, there were three people in the running: Lynn Acre, Bob Lozon and Rainey Weisler.
On Friday, before the 2 p.m. deadline, one more person decided to throw his proverbial ‘hat in the ring’.
“I was the deputy mayor there up until 2010 and I’ve served on council for 12-and-a-half of the 15 years since amalgamation, so I think that makes me the longest-serving member since amalgamation,” said Cliff Evanitski. “I think when a person makes a decision to get involved in municipal politics, or politics at any level, it shouldn’t be entered into lightly, and to be frank, I was maximizing my time in thinking about it.
“I probably had about a dozen constituents call me Friday morning and I was trying to garner as much input as I could and make sure that when I hopped in there I was doing it for the right reasons, and obviously that’s to serve my community.”
All three previously interviewed candidates were asked a series of questions about the upcoming by-election. We posed the same questions to Evanitski as the fourth and final candidate in the running for deputy mayor.
WHY ARE YOU RUNNING FOR DEPUTY MAYOR?
“I always looked at my time on municipal council as an extension of my community service over the years,” said Evanitski. “I like to help people, and having worked at all three levels of government, I felt that I had a skill set, expertise and experience that would be very beneficial to our constituents.”
WHAT ISSUES ARE YOU MOST CONCERNED ABOUT AND WHY?
“Fiscal responsibility has always been key in my platform or philosophy when it comes to dealing with the municipality,” said Evanitski. “I look at the municipality as really a business, in that we perform a number of services for our constituents, which are our shareholders. And at the end of the day we have to make sure that in providing those services, that we do so in a cost effective and efficient manner.
“Regardless of what project the municipality gets themselves involved in, you got to make sure that you do it in a fashion that A) you can afford and B) if for whatever reason, it’s not going to work, is there a contingency plan – because life is always full of surprises, right?”
WHAT DO YOU WANT THE PEOPLE OF BAYHAM TO KNOW ABOUT YOU, THAT WOULD MAKE YOU A GOOD DEPUTY MAYOR?
“The one thing, and it’s certainly been reflected in the emails and the phone calls I’m getting from people, is they like to see me back on council because I think I take a very stable, common sense approach to how we run the business of a municipality,” he said. “I’m not afraid to ask difficult questions and I think one thing that people can certainly count on – I guess because I had been a reporter and because I’ve been in municipal politics so long, is that they can expect the straight goods and answers from me, and if I don’t have them I’ll certainly get them for them.”