A private business owner has put her name forward to run for town council in High River.

Deborah Gauger says when it comes to borrowing $15-million for a new swimming pool at the Rec-Plex she'd like to see the tax base expanded first.

"I would be very curious to know what percentage of the population uses the facility right now, let's go pre-COVID because everything's distorted in the last year and a half, but if we look back to 2019 and 2018 what percentage of the population uses it, what demographic of our population uses it, we need to know that before we can a determination on spending money."

"Fifteen million dollars for a renovated facility is fifteen million dollars but what does that mean? It means that if you're a property owner your property taxes are going to increase by $290 a year for the next 25 years, I mean that is a significant investment and that's the lesser of the two investment," she says.

Gauger says the town needs to define itself better to attract more visitors, residents and developers.

She wants the town to have a definable brand so that when people hear about High River in other communities no matter where they are they have an idea of what the town's all about.

"Before we can do other things we have to determine who we are first and foremost, so that would be the start of my platform, but very quickly and in conjunction with that I would also say making the bold statement that we are open for business to attract developers, some of whom may have been disenfranchised for one reason or another or have overlooked us for one reason or another, to bring them back into our fold and have the discussion with them and say 'we need to grow, we want to grow, we are under-serviced, we want to create more jobs, we want to attract more people' these are key for me as someone who is a part of the business community."

Gauger wants to see downtown businesses getting together and using their combined strength saying there isn't the vibrancy that a downtown needs to thrive.

"They independently have amazing ideas for attracting people, but collectively it's much more powerful and working together as a collective it's much more beneficial to all of them," said Gauger.

"It's a gem that's waiting to be discovered an uncovered so that we have more vibrancy because that's really the heart and soul of any town, it's measured by the downtown core because that's where the history is, that's where the legacy is and that's very much what defines High River for me."

Gauger has just finished expanding her home and brought her parents to the town from the Okanogan while both she and her husband each run independent businesses and says they aren't going anywhere.

 

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