Phaff Wants To Bring Order, Transparency, Integrity To City

Council candidate Cheryl Phaff wears her conservative values proudly and believes it’s high time to have a councillor willing to put those ideals to work at city hall.

“I’m running to bring sanity back to city hall,” said Phaff.

As a former business owner in construction and currently in manufacturing, she’d be bringing that experience with her if elected.

“I’m. going to be bringing that business mind set to council,” said Phaff, listing planning, project management and budgeting among the skills she’d bring to city hall. “Running a manufacturing company, a lot of times you have to be making practical solutions to technical problems – often on the fly.”

 She said she also has the political chops for council, garnered as a former director with the provincial Wildrose Party.

“I’ve served on many boards, innumerable meetings and I’ve worked on a team for a shared vision to accomplish a goal. I think that’s what politics and running a city is all about,” said Phaff.

Getting quality jobs for Hatters while stimulating economic growth in the community will be her primary goal if she secures a council seat.

“When I was growing up, Medicine Hat and Lethbridge were sister, rival cities. And now, Lethbridge has left us in the dust,” said Phaff.

She’d also like to put an emphasis on dealing with crime and homelessness in the city.

“It’s a balanced approach of making sure there are treatment options and offering that but also cracking down on crime and break and enters and thefts,” said Phaff.

When it comes to dealing with municipal taxes, Phaff said she is supportive of freezing them.

“There is an affordability crisis right now amongst people and when city council is raising your taxes five, six per cent a year, it adds up,” she said. “That’s hard for people and their budgets every month. It we can freeze that, that goes a long way to helping that out.”

When it comes to questions as to how to freeze taxes, Phaff indicated she is confident there are efficiencies to be had at city hall.

On the issue of transparency, Phaff said a huge part of trust in government is the ability to see how it’s functioning.

“And, we’ve seen a real lack of trust amongst the public for this current council,” she said. “When you are making national news for your city manager and mayor suing each other and the province has to send in an inspector to access governance issues among city council and administration - things have gone off the rails.”

As a business owner, Phaff said she’s had a lot of sales experience and, “Medicine Hat is a great product and it would just be another one I would possibly get to be able to promote. I think it would be awesome.”