Councillor candidate Spek looks to bring a different perspective to Medicine Hat city council

“I’ve been thinking about politics for quite some time, specifically municipal politics,” Spek said.

“I had even considered running in the last election, but it just wasn’t the right timing for my family. So we held off,” she added.

“Now just seems like the right time.”

She said we are in an affordability crisis right now.

“The property tax increase is pretty significant. I think if we can get in there and look at the budget and figure out ways to even maybe lessen that tax increase for the next one to two years, we should be doing that,” Spek said.

“I think there are lots of people who are dollars away from not being able to afford their mortgage, their rent, their utilities, their grocery bill,” she added.

“If there’s anything we can be doing at a municipal level to ease that burden during this time, we should be looking at it.”

Economic development and new industry are also priorities for Spek.

“We’ve been pretty stagnant for years. I would love to see new industry coming here for multiple reasons,” Spek said.

“You increase the tax base and that increases the revenue for the city, but also new industry means more jobs for our younger generation that are coming up,” she added.

“I would love for my kids as they get older to have more options for jobs so that they could stay here where we live.”

Recreation and community wellbeing are also focuses, which she says are important for a couple of reasons.

“When you’re attracting new industry, I think younger families who are maybe looking to make a move for a job when they’ve got more options for their young families, it’s more appealing,” Spek said.

“I think when you have more options for the younger generation, it gives them more positive things to do around the city.”

Now 35, Spek was born and raised in Fort McMurray and has lived in Medicine Hat for nearly 12 years.

She and her husband are both small business owners, and together they have invested in commercial property in the city.

“I didn’t pay myself the first five years I was in business because my overhead was just so expensive being in a rental on a prime location,” Spek said.

“So we purchased and renovated our first building on North Railway Street in 2019, and since we’ve done that, we now are home to 10 female entrepreneurs who run their businesses out of that location,” she added.

“My husband has a small shop in the back that he runs his business out of.”

Two years later, a second building was purchased, a trend that continued.

“The building that is now home to Botanicals. We leased that back to her at an affordable rate,” Spek said.

“Recently, we purchased the oldest building on the block. It was built in 1911 at the same time as the railroad station, and we’re currently working with some architects and engineers to salvage the original brick facade on that,” she added.

“The plan will also be to lease that back at affordable rental rates for other local small business owners and entrepreneurs.”

Spek has experience sitting on boards with both the Southeast Alberta Chamber of Commerce and Community Futures Entrecorps, giving her some governance experience.

“City council is like a board of directors, and you have one employee. And so you hopefully hire that one employee to effectively be able to do their job with the city council and communicate the goals of city council and what the plan is,” Spek said.

“Being able to confidently and appropriately manage the staff at city hall and empower them to do their jobs to the best of their ability, especially in every department, because that’s why we hire people,” she added.

“We hire people to do their job and do it well,” she added.

A task the new city council will have after the current city council removed city manager Ann Mitchell.

“I think it’s no secret, people aren’t happy. You have 39 candidates who are running for city council,” Spek said.

“It’s really unfortunate that it has gone the way it has. At the end of the day, the job of city council is to find common ground and make the best decisions possible for the city,” she added.

“I think given everything that has gone on, people are feeling that just didn’t happen.”

Spek said there is no point in focusing on the negativity that’s come.

“I think we look forward to the next four years in a positive way,” Spek said.

“We’ve got a lot of really great candidates running and I think a lot of good variety of people who all have that common goal of wanting to do what’s best for the city,” she added.

“You hope for some good progress in the right direction and some good level-headed people who can get in there and make good decisions for the community.”

by Jesse Gill

Councillor candidate Spek looks to bring a different perspective to Medicine Hat city council

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