Pamela Kunz

Pamela Kunz is a first time candidate vying for your vote. She and Brian discuss her reasons for running for city council. She comes from the non-profit sector and has spent the last two years on various boards learning how government works to get things done.

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Transcript

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The the financial ask of some of our nonprofits is not, what I thought it was. It's their what? Their, what they're needing from the municipality. I did make the assumption that it's mostly financial. And a lot of them, it's, advocacy to the province. This episode of Bring Back the Porch, brought to you by Bernie Leahy, River Street Realty. Let's get you home. And joining me now on the porch, Pamela Kunz, a candidate for Medicine Hat city council. Welcome. Thank you. Tell me a little bit about this journey we call life that is taking you to this point. Well, my medicine hat life started in 95, so I, just celebrated my 30th, living anniversary here. I was married and, raised my family here. So my youngest child is now, a year past graduation in 19. So I've got some some energy I need to put somewhere else. And, about two years ago, I thought this might be my next step. I got a lot of experience, and, both professionally and, in nonprofit sector. Six years ago, I started trying to find the best way for volunteerism in my life. And I wasn't quite sure how I could contribute. And, that's actually when I learned the importance of, board governance for nonprofit organizations. So I started. Working through that, and I've made my way through a couple of boards, and it's pretty awesome. So you've been in medicine at 30 years, and you were telling me before we started that you want to be here at least another 30 years. What is it about medicine that that, you love? To me, it's the epitome of community with with the extras. I just I do really appreciate the the people here. I, the the landscape. Just the footprint of Medicine Hat alone. I know people, kind of refer to us as a little bit forgotten, but it kind of makes it a little quiet. So, you know, in any direction we can travel. Still take a day trip to the big city if we want to, but, in in the campaigning, I've learned that there are a lot of, people that would like to see us get a little bit bigger, a little bit more flourishing. And so I think it's I think it's time to maybe introduce those kinds of ideas and how we can get that to the next step. And keep, keep the next generation here, with, with still keeping the draw to our, our senior community and want them to come and live here, too. So you mentioned that, you made the decision probably about two years ago to, to get into this and you've been strategic for the last two years. Yeah. Yeah, I did I. So going back to introducing the idea of council, being on council, you have to you have to spend a little time educating yourself, right. I the boards that I sat on have been one of the key educators understanding governance. I'm my professional background puts me at a highly operational brain. Problem solving and troubleshooting and and being right in there, doing those things. So learning how to back off a little bit and just be more influential and helping with the higher level decisions, so that in my training, so to speak, for council and then I'm, I have some history in education where I'm trained in occupational health and safety, so that, that manual reads like the MGA. So I was able to, you know, really engage and watch the council meetings and every time referring to MGA being able to read it and actually see how that correlates with what they were deciding. So that helped with the the theory kind of behind. And then and then the actual practical side was, you know, making sure that I was continuously watching the council meetings and the interactions and paying more attention to the facts and data that come through that and the types of decisions they have to make. And, also spent some time, communicating with other municipal, kind of not candidates, council members, mayors of other municipalities and kind of see comparatively, on a higher scale level, what they, what they deal with on a regular basis. Mga for those who aren't familiar with the term, it's miscible government act, it's the rulebook. It's the. Rulebook, and that's what you need to follow. Any preconceived notions that have been popped while you've been doing your work? Your homework? Yes, yes. The, the financial ask of some of our non-profits is not, what I thought it was. It's their what? Their, what they're needing from the municipality. I did make the assumption that it's mostly financial. And a lot of them, it's, advocacy to the province because their their financial backers are the province and needing us to make sure that we're advocating for them, for the need for our community is, a much stronger, step for them than just saying we have to budget for money for this nonprofit or that nonprofit. And I'm talking about more of our social services level. That one, I'm very glad that I was able to communicate that early on in my, campaign so that I didn't go off on a soapbox saying what we had to do financially for our nonprofits. You, have alluded when we were speaking before we we, turned the cameras and the microphones on about communications and how sometimes people make a decision based on what they think. Yep. What's going on? Communication. One of the key things that you would like to work on. Yeah, absolutely. I think communication within the council itself and understanding, we've had a lot of people and I mean, a lot of people say, you know, do you think there's going to be eight people that can get along? And I have the same response every time, and I'm like, you can get along with people you don't even like. It's can you fight, respectively? Can you can you debate? Can you, you know, bring each other to the level of understanding where, you know, you know, there's going to be a majority and you may be the one person that doesn't necessarily agree with the decision, but because we have to go forward with the will of council, can we get the the clear, information to each of us that we at least can respect the decision we're going with? And, those kinds of things internally have to be, very well manicured, to have success. But on the outside, too, I think we have we have a golden opportunity. It's it's hard to say that after, you know, people feel the last four years were a lot of miscommunication, non communication, you know, and we deal with social media on such a scale. And it's our life nowadays. And you don't have time to get ahead or clarify or anything. So the opportunity I see with the fact that we've had kind of a light shone on, you know, council and administration, I joke with some of the constituents I've spoken to, you know, ten years ago I would bet anybody you couldn't name five councilors or tell me what a managing director was. And, you know, so our community is very well aware of the, the org chart and the, positions that everybody holds. And I think if we can, if we can get a group together that really wants to communicate that out into the community and start to find out how is the best way to communicate. I love this podcast. I love the opportunity we have with some of our facilities, like the Esplanade, that forum. Right? Like for our first year we should be once a month. You know, being up there and having it, you know, the first ones could be a little spicy. Our first open mic nights with the community could be a little bit spicy, but the clearer we can get in the beginning then then when we do have to have the confidential conversations where people don't feel like we're hiding things from them, there are, you know, there's guidelines that we do have to follow as well. And I think being clear from the beginning is, is going to be I think it's a step I would like to see us take for sure. Social media as good and bad points and bad points sometimes, hit you right in the face. Yeah. You were telling me that you learned things about yourself that you didn't even know. Yeah, absolutely. I would convince people that they were wrong. Yeah, 100%. I, I said it very early in my campaign that I was not going to engage on social media. I know we have to use it as a platform. And I, I, I've actually, I would say almost put people off because I don't you know, I've been told that I ignore people and I've, I've left my communication wide open other than social media. I have, you know, coffee meetings. I had an email this morning from somebody that wanted to set up a coffee meeting tomorrow afternoon because there's a group of people that want to meet with me. So, and that's how easy it is. And I'm right there. I have made myself fully available all day, all weekend, for people to reach out. And I just. Social media seems to always get misconstrued. There's, you know, there's there's cherry picking little bits of information and then it's not necessarily the first comment, it's the 22 down that it's gone awry. And thread has. Yeah. And you can't you can't. You don't want to always feel like you're defending yourself. So I just felt face to face was always the best. So I made that opportunity available for anybody that wanted to take it. Your interaction with the other 38 candidates. How's that. Been? It's been awesome. It's been awesome. I, I, I've used the phrase, all solutions have side effects. And I felt like me running for council was a solution to the future of Medicine Hat. Because I feel I can really bring forward skills and knowledge. But the side effect to me, running was meeting so many wonderful people that have a passion for this community. And, we have we. Who else do you know that goes through the exact same life situation you do for the exact same amount of time, so nobody else knows what it feels like to run for council except for those 38 other people. So our stories get to be shared, and we all know what we're talking about. And in relation to situations that have happened or interactions we've had and ideas, you know, I'm so looking forward to just the brain dump of everything that, we've all learned in our campaigns. Once we get that eight people selected. And, and I hope if I'm graced with a seat that the, the people that I've connected with, through the campaign, become resources for me and we stay connected and vice versa. I think it's just been great. Regardless of whether you win or lose, you have hope for the next council. I do, I do. There's a lot of people that have a lot of great ideas and an understanding of what they're getting into. That's that's the biggest thing I was looking for. It's there's not a lot of people going in. I just want to do this, you know, like everybody that's that I've spoken to and I've got to interact with, on a on a deeper level, they have a very clear understanding what they're getting into. So when you've been doorknocking and meeting with people in these, smaller forums, what's their biggest issue? What's their big concern? But there's the there's the standard, you know, community one. So the taxation is a huge is a huge concern for people. And, you know, the best we can do is actually help people understand the, the reason for taxation, you know, like it's it's something that a municipality has to do. But what we want to make sure is worse, lowering them as much as possible, slower lowering them. Yeah. I don't you can't nothing ever goes down. You know, groceries aren't going to go down. You know, it's just the new level in which things are. But we need to match that. And we need to make sure that, and this is where my operational brain comes in, because you go into an organization and, you know, you have to clean up spending before you know what you can budget for the next year. So taking that grand picture, that grand snapshot of what our spending is and how we can clean that up so that we, we ask less of the community, and then helping understand and helping them understand, you know, some of the projects that sound wonderful. And, you know, we really, really need them. But what ratio to ask, is there then a requirement for taxation. And so and there's, there's not only that there's, there's provincial things that come down that become municipal taxes. They, they come in to that. And so communicating that and that goes back to that, helping people understand, because the quickest way to anger somebody is to confuse them, hurt them, you know, and so we just need to help the community understand that if there is an ask, they need to they need to be okay with that ask. We have heard some promises in this campaign of, 0% tax increases. Do you think that's doable? I don't know if it's doable, but I don't I honestly, I, I don't know if it's if it's a fair promise. So that's, that's why I always want to just make sure that we're able to communicate why and how and what we're asking for. Because it is what it is. We're asking our residents, if if the things that we are putting their tax money to is, is what they want to see in the community and, and helping understand what we need to bring in to the community to help balance out that tax base, as well. So, yeah, affordability is the one word that I've heard a lot from people who have been on the other side of the table here during these podcasts. And, taxation is one part of that utility rates. The other part of that. Yeah. How do we, how do we keep it all, balanced. Balance, again, paying attention, and paying attention to the taxation as a spending, utilities is, fairness in what we're charging. You know, I'm, I am also a citizen who pays utilities. That is incredibly frustrated with administrative fees. Unless you can show me that, what I'm paying for, something goes to something, and I'm, I'm taking that mentality to the inside if I get it. Because I want those questions asked because. Yeah, yeah, that is a frustration. And you look at your utility bill and you see the commodity charge. Okay, that's fine. But then you've got an administrative charge and the, you know, municipal consent fee and, and all these other fees that the fees actually add up more than what it cost to deliver the commodity. Yeah. And because every, every, you know, employee, every everybody that works for the municipality, that money comes out of the tax base. That's that's what your tax dollars pay for. Everybody that works. So, it feels a little like a double dip. And I may start a little bit of a firestorm with this statement, but it's a bit of a double dip when you're being charged on your utility bill for administration, that that administration should be being covered by your, your tax dollars. So I, I would like that clarified to me. Okay. There is a laundry list of issues that I've been asking each candidate about. So we'll talk about the utilities and the idea that perhaps a municipally controlled corporation is the way to go, to remove the responsibility of some of that operation from people in the council who may not have the expertise to make those decisions. Your thoughts? The mic, I read the reports. I've. I've followed it all the way through. I cannot come to a, smoking gun conclusion. Which is the better way. I spoke to a couple developers, a couple of our very large organizations that rely a lot of on us for energy and, that that still didn't clarify it. I would like to I'm hoping that once, once inside again graced with that seat, I can I can find out a little bit more as to the practicality of it because, you know, it's not selling off our utilities. There's that mis, you know, misinterpretation of it. It's keeping everything still within here. It's just changing the the framework in which it's managed. And, you know, there could be some very positive outcomes of that. But also I think we're hugely underestimating where we're going to find those, people with the experience and understanding, a corporation of that level. And, I would like to speak to those people, the people that do have the experience and that and, some reflection and being a resident, you know, you don't get that access. So I definitely would like to see. That part of that discussion on utilities, too, is what we are going to do with the Sam solar project. Yeah, a lot of money. Yeah, a lot of money. Yeah. I did actually reach out to an old friend of mine who is in the solar world. He doesn't live here in Medicine Hat, so I wanted to make sure I had a a non profitable conversation that I wasn't asking somebody that would benefit terribly from, this idea, but, I, I think if we're going to do any sort of investment in solar, I would like to see the community be able to take advantage of it more by, you know, accessing solar availability to their homes so that they could sell back to the grid. And they make it. Like I spoke to a couple of people in Cypress County, like, I mean, they don't everything's covered and it actually pays them back, you know? And so then they can pay for the equipment and stuff like that. And so speaking to, like I said, an old friend of mine that is in that industry, there's, there's some of our downtown, buildings that the infrastructure of them couldn't manage it. The entire, electrical, system in those buildings would have to be redone. But with every new home and the province having incentives for solar, I think before we go to this mass project, that again, is controlled by one entity, I would like to see us put the option into the residents themselves and let people decide what they what they want to do for solar investment and, and see if that benefits them before we get into too big of a project that we maybe can't manage in the future. One of the things that people see on a daily basis, if they come through Madison, that downtown is the people who are without a home, a permanent residence, the Mustard Seed has been trying to find a place for these people, but faced, Nimby not in my backyard that opposition. And they have withdrawn their application to use the former, labor Hall youth hostel. So we're back at square one again. Pamela Coons have any thoughts on that? Well, again, speaking with the, the community housing organization and I sit on the board of the root cellar, and there's so many dynamics in town that are are helping. And one of the one of the biggest factors is I have people say to me, what do you plan on doing about homelessness? How I feel I'd have a much bigger calling if I could cure homelessness. I would, you know, and there's, you know, 5000 reasons why somebody finds themselves without a home or, you know, a meal or anything like that. So we have to continue to assist our, our, our community of that nature as much as we can and make sure that they're cared for as much as they can and then continue to look for solutions. And they're, they're something's not going to drop out of a hat and say, oh, here's the perfect idea. And, you know, what? Do we want to be our end result? Do we want to help, rehabilitate people? Do we want to get them back into work? Do we want to. Right. And so that circles all of the questions we have. Do we have jobs that we can put people back to work in? And so we just have to continue to find, the proper place. And if we have to have temporary placement, what's that going to look like? And it's, it's, it's policing, it's housing, it's, it's food and security, you know, and each one of those things and like I said, I wish I had the solution, but there's limited facilities that we can put, a full shelter in that are available to us right now. There's limited organizations that can say that they can back that and, and willingness to do it. So, again, I just I wish there was a beautiful answer to that, but there isn't. We just have to continue to broaden our scope and make sure that we're doing all that we can with what we have. I think for some, the solution would just be take them out of my eyesight. Yep. There is. Yeah. And that's that's sad because they're not addressing a problem. There is. And I've I've had that conversation with people and I said, you know, I can't I can't cure homelessness, but I might be able to help you with your discomfort. You know, there's, you know, and I say that to people, and some people get uncomfortable with it because they don't want to see it. They don't want to see whether it makes you feel badly, whether it just makes you feel uncomfortable and, you know, knowing. And again, that comes back to communication, knowing that people are being fed. We don't have starving people in Medicine Hat. We may have people that are cold. We may have people that don't have a place to live, but we don't have starving people in Medicine Hat. We make sure, you know, our root cellar. And I might be a little biased because yes, I said on the board, does such amazing things to make sure bellies are full in this community. And, and the amount of those bellies that we have to feed every month is heartbreaking. So we just have to continue to make sure that as a community and as a municipality, we're supporting these beautiful organizations that are helping to the capacity that they can. Economic development is a way that we can increase our tax base and maybe have money for a different types of programs. So how do you think the city should be expanding our tax base? Well, I, I have some ideas. I, some I think the, the quickest, and most, efficient way to, to build money and economy and, people coming into the community is we need to we need to amp up our tourism. And I don't mean just come and look at a, a brewery tour. I mean, you know, advertise our facilities and start hosting conferences. Start hosting, not just like our. Our sports footprint is amazing. You know, like, we and we can amp that up, too. You know, we've got we've got some ice. We might need some more ice. You know, we might, you know, we might need to put a little money into our convention center, you know, the lodge or something like this, and now have to start from scratch. But, you know, having having 1500, 20, 2500 people visiting here every month, every month, every weekend, is going to bring money into the community. It's and it's bringing eyes on to the community, you know, and we hope every 1 or 2 people from each one of those weekend start. Oh, maybe I should reach out to a realtor. This place is wonderful. You know, we have such a grand region that we could provide, so much extra to, a conference of sorts. You know, people go to Edmonton, Calgary, and you see the sights, you do the things. But we could be that new Western Canadian. It's one stop spot for for anything. I have a, a client that she goes down to the States for a quilting conference. I'm like, people go to a quilting conference. Well, we can quilt here, you know? Let's bring it here. So it's just people conference for anything. And if we could start to bring that draw and then. Well, that's occurring and there's continuous money coming in to the community, we can be working in the background, reaching out to, to large scale industry. And, you know, what do we have here that we could start looking at up, scale down, scale upstream, downstream, all the things on either side of the industries we have here that would benefit the industries here. So they could grow and we could start to add, you know, to to that kind of, continuous improvement, I guess, would be a good, a good way to look at that. And, you know, we've got, let's be real, our greenhouses are fantastic. So what what kind of products are made with the greenhouse, products that we grow? And why don't we have that facility here? You know, why are we not reaching out to them? They're not going to call us and say, hey, we heard you got some great land up there. We need we need to get out there and start talking and I think Ted said it, at the forum, a phone goes both directions, but yeah. So I, I kind of I like that statement where it's, it's time to stop being forgotten and and be the, you know, corner brat saying, hey, we want some attention. Let's let's. Go. One of the things I found interesting was, they did a survey recently of people in Calgary and Edmonton about, the level of growth in their cities. And, 60% plus were saying, whoa, pull back the reins were growing too fast. Yep. There's an opportunity for medicine to say, well, we have room here. Yeah. Look at Medicine Head. Yeah. And I, I agree 100%. And that's one of the things that I would say I learned in my council training that I've done for the last two years is, other communities that do great things. They want to tell you the great things they've done and they would be humbled and appreciative if if somebody else did the great things that they did, like, don't reinvent the wheel. Let's let's go see what other places are doing or where we can fill a void for somewhere else. Do you see the Southside Recreation Center, helping to attract those people that you're talking about? Come to Medicine Hat? I think it would if it again, solutions side effect. Right. Like if we do kind of amp up our tourism and we get people coming and seeing that, then that's going to be then then it's not conferences we're looking at. We're we're family long weekends, we're family reunions. Then our campgrounds are we need to amplify them like there's so many trickle of effect of, of things that we can add to that. But the beauty of being able to do things like that is we're looking at little growths that are going to continue to grow, as in the background. We have to be on the like on the phone, on, on the highway, going to places where we can say to these companies, you know, like you said, come, come on. Come, Madison. That is absolutely one of those things that attracts people to Madison. And every summer is the Medicine Hat exhibition and Stampede. And they have been, coming to council quite frequently over the last year, asking for help to improve their facilities. Would you vote yes or no on that? As it stands right now, I would have to say no. Because we are we are very pressured with the taxation, and I believe the formula is for every million dollar ask, we're almost at a percentage of tax increase. And and that was a lot of millions of dollars. Ask. And so that has to be that has to be a community, donor, a provincial that has to be a partnership. And I just don't think we found that perfect formula yet. It doesn't mean it can't be found. But we definitely have to be. That is a very strategic and long standing plan, to ask for that. And and maybe in smaller increments. But I don't think we found the right formula of how much of a build, how much of an ask is doable and the community get really behind without without there being a huge ask on that taxation base. Again. When I go into the, ballot box and my $0.39 almost like a scroll of names, I only have eight votes that I can use. Why should I put an X beside the name of Pamela Coons? Well, I'm I'm in it for the long haul. Not just as I want to retire here, but, this has been. One of the best experiences. And it's validated to me. This is my introduction into council. I would actually like to run three terms. I would ideally, I would like to be two terms on council and have the community ask me to be the mayor. It sounds a little egotistical, but I would like to do such a good job and and show that we still have that available. And, we still have that person available. There's somebody still with the heart of Medicine Hat that can that can be that person. And that's what I would like to see. I so every decision that I go in, I'm, I'm but can be a little stubborn. I can be a little loud. I can be, empathetic and gentle as well. But, every decision isn't just for. Let's see what I can do in four years. You know, like, like I said, we've got we've got these little wins that we need to bring forward continuously, and we need to rebuild the respect and the communication got to be working on that. We can't hyper focus on one thing at a time. And I think, I actually, I know I would be the person that would be able to do that, you know, don't lose your eye on that game of that big grand growth. But we're continuously building all of these little things that we need to keep medicine hat going. So you're playing the long game? I'm playing the long game. Absolutely. Pamela Kunz, candidate for Medicine Hat City Council, October 20th. Thanks for the visit. Thank you.