Next week’s municipal election will represent a changing of the guard for the Rural Municipality of Prince Albert.
Incumbent Reeve Norma Sheldon is not seeking re-election.
The two candidates vying for the top spot are Eugene Matwishyn and Paul Rybka.
Matwishyn has been a councillor in the RM for 10 years and a deputy reeve for five.
“I feel we’ve got a lot of issues that we’re in the middle of and some exciting things coming forth, so I wanted to make sure we stayed on track with those,” he said.
Matwishyn said the R.M. is looking at developing a path for commercial development in the south highway industrial corridor.
He is also a big proponent of the need for a second bridge in or near Prince Albert.
“I believe it to be a provincial responsibility, it’s connecting off a lot of industry to the north so I’m thinking it should be a provincial and federal shared responsibility,” he said.
Roads and infrastructure are also on Matwishyn’s agenda.
Those concerns are echoed by Paul Rybka, who served on council for nine years.
“In the whole R.M. we have to continue widening our roads and making them much more accessible for the larger farm machinery because they were simply not built to take the weight of the large trailers,” Rybka said.
He would also push for more development in the R.M., but for that to happen certain bylaws will have to be changed.
“We run into a lot of instances where mom and dad are getting older on the farm and they sub-divide their farm site for estate planning then they want to keep farming for a few more years, and the son and daughter would like to come home and build on the other end of the quarter but under the R.M.’s current guidelines and bylaws as they are now, they cannot do so,” he said.
Rybka said he would also like to see expansion of the R.M. shop and R.M. road construction crew to help address the roads that need fixing.
In addition to the position of Reeve, residents in the R.M. will be voting for a division five councillor.
The candidates running are Wayne Acorn and Charmaine Bergman.
Election Day is Oct. 26 and will take place at the Municipal Centennial Building at 99 River St. E. in Prince Albert.
The polls will be open from 9 a.m. to 8p.m.
nmaxwell@panow.com
On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell
Editor’s Note: This story was updated to correct the spelling of candidate Paul Rybka’s name at 3:27 p.m.
