Through the 2017 Municipal Election season The Eagle 100.9 and Okotoks Online will be bringing you profiles of candidates to help you make an informed decision.

Tell us a little bit about yourself:

"This will be my eighth term on council, I started on council at a time when there was some controversial governance circumstances going on, and I had spent seven years on the High River Hospital Board. I felt I had been the beneficiary of government funded governance training, and if I couldn't fix the problem at least I could help not be part of it, and that's what drew me to council in 1995."

What is the main part of your platform?:

"Basically what I call Okotoks 3.0, Okotoks 1.0 was traditional Okotoks, Okotoks 2.0 was our Finite Growth Model, and Okotoks 3.0 is a brave new world moving into growth. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water, let's maintain our sustainable principles, let's maintain the innovative, creative community we have moving forward to make it bigger and better. Securing long term water source typically has been known as the pipeline, it's been slow, it's been complicated, it's not going to probably be in the ground in a year there's an awful lot going on with that. Part of it is our economy, part of it is the realities of current government, the main thing I guess I want to get across is I don't think it has to be so urgent and desperate that we need to have it be a burden on the backs of existing taxpayers. This should be funded creatively so new growth pays for it, it should be funded so the provincial and federal government can do that. Why should Okotoks be the one community paying for water when everybody else seems to have an right to access water for growth, why should we be the guys paying for it ourselves? I think the provincial government owes a big reasonability in that, and I don't want to let them off the hook in that."

Sands adds his accomplishments over the past seven years prove his ability as a councillor:

"One of our first projects was the launch of Sustainable Okotoks, Our Finite Growth Model, I spent a couple terms on council defending and moving that forward. A couple exciting things came out of that: the Drake Landing Solar Community, and appearances on national news with Okotoks as a source of information for sustainable growth, represented us nationally and internationally. Unfortunately one of the things we didn't do is protect enough land around Okotoks to have certainty to have control of the future. We've moved to a continuous growth model now and I think with our annexation being approved in July this is going to be a very exciting term. We have water to grow, we have to secure some kind of a long term pipeline But I don't think we need to do that at all costs, because things are in place to grow. What we need to do is move forward in a growth model that still respects sustainable principles, innovation, and making the community as beautiful in Alberta and Canada as we can."

Every Okotoks candidate running for the 2017 municipal election will get to opportunity to explain who they are, their platform and why they are running. The candidate profiles are posted at random. If you are a candidate and have not been contacted, please email news@okotoksonline.com

Questions, comments, or story ideas? Email us at news@okotoksonline.com