Terrace City Councilor Sean Bujtas has announced that he will be running for mayor in upcoming municipal elections.

Bujtas’ platform focuses on encouraging the provincial government to get more involved with its municipalities to confront a variety of issues. 

Bujtas is currently a co-chair of the Northwest British Columbia Resource Benefits Alliance which is a group of local governments that work together to negotiate a revenue sharing agreement with the provincial government. 

A revenue sharing agreement would allow annual budgets for local governments around the LNG and Coastal GasLink projects to increase, giving them the ability to adapt to the continuing economic growth

Bujtas wants to encourage the provincial government to focus on issues like mental health and addiction as way to confront homlessness and crime rates. 

“The town continues to struggle with crime, and I think it’s very important that we continue to put pressure on the provincial government and maybe possibly the federal government to deal with this crisis”, Bujtas said while talking about the province’s approach to prolific offenders. 

Working with the province isn’t the only partnership Bujtas wants to work on though. 

Bujtas talked about wanting to build stronger relationships with the surrounding indigenous communities so that they can work together on plans that would benefit everyone. 

In the 2018 municipal election, incumbent mayor Carol Leclerc was acclaimed after running for her second term. Leclerc is not running again, making her one of many current mayors in the northwest not seeking re-election.

Bujtas is currently in his second term as city councilor, and is also currently running uncontended. 

Nomination packages for potential candidates can be picked up at city hall until August 30th, and general voting will take place at the Terrace Sportsplex and Cassie Hall Elementary School on October 15th. 

Listen to the full radio story below: