Anderson seeks fourth term as reeve in Piney

RM of Piney Reeve Wayne Anderson is seeking a fourth term as head of council.

“We have a lot of projects on the go right now, and I’d like to see them through,” said Anderson. “There’s probably half a dozen, or maybe more, but it’s kind of like an ongoing thing, they have to be looked after. And in the same manner we’ve been doing it because it’s been successful so far.”

Anderson was born and raised in the RM of Alonsa in the Interlake. He moved to Winnipeg as an adult to work mostly as an engineer for Manitoba Hydro. He and his wife moved to Piney to look after his mother who moved from Ottawa to Sprague and needed care. When he retired from Manitoba Hydro he opened an auto repair shop in Sprague, which he later sold in 2017. Since 2014, he has been leading Piney’s council.

He said the biggest problem right now in the municipality is trying to complete all the projects while there is an election looming. He said the hiring of an economic development officer coupled with implementing a new recreation master plan and finding ways to financially support the nine community centres in the RM are top of mind.

“One of the main recommendations of this consultant, when we did a recreation master plan, was to provide resources for the volunteers in all the community centres, because they were experiencing burnout with all the things they had to do for fundraising and so forth. And there was only a few people to do all the work,” he said.

One of the ways to support the community centres is to apply for grant money from the provincial and federal governments. Anderson expects the new economic development officer to write the grant proposals to help the community centres.

“These grants that you apply for are very, very complicated and time consuming. So, you can’t put that on to some volunteer to pull out the paperwork and so forth.”

Anderson noted Piney council is having problems with the provincial government’s water services board as it wants the RM to chlorinate its public agricultural wells under Bill 21.

“We tried to fight them on that, but they’re digging their heels in,” he said. “There are more things to be done. There’s a lot of inspectors coming out here now, inspecting things and outlawing things. We have to keep on top of that.”

One of the initiatives that Anderson brought to council was getting cell service for Piney through the Southeast Cell Committee. He said the RM is 50 percent covered for cell service with only Vassar, Sprague, and South Junction needing service at the moment, which council is working on.

Anderson also brought in the idea to have a regional transportation study done for public transportation as he wanted to make the municipality age friendly. This intitiative led to the Southeast Regional Transportation Initiative (SERTI) that created a partnership with Buffalo Point First Nation for the rent-a-ride vehicles for the two areas. This was paid for from a $1.05 million government fund with the largest portion of grant money ($154,330) going to Piney for the public transit initiative.

“And there’s still a lot of work to be done on that because transportation being what it is and gas prices going up and our elderly population, eventually we’ll find it necessary to use public transportation,” he said.

Anderson believes people are pretty satisfied with all the things he has done to this point and will vote for him because of that. He believes if there is a changeover in council, it will need a leader who will get the council going in the right direction.

Since 2014, under Anderson’s leadership, this council has managed to keep taxes low by keeping the mill rate the same over the years. He said Piney has the lowest mill rate out of all the southeastern municipalities at 12.090 mills compared to the average of 14.067 mills with the highest hitting 15.655 mills.

“We have an elderly population. They can’t afford extra taxes,” he said.

“We live within our means, but we’re not going to be raising the mill rate sky high to take on a bunch of projects that will not be of benefit to the ratepayer, which is going to happen if people don’t understand how things work properly. So, it’s easy to get off track. I would like to see the new council get off in the right direction,” he added.

He does acknowledge that farm property tax assessments are dramatically high and need attention. Anderson said the RM is not able to lower the mill rate further as it is already low, but he will seek tax relief for farmers “through any means available to a municipality.”

Anderson describes himself as a leader who thinks ahead and is very collaborative with councillors and administration. He believes in using everyone’s talents to the fullest. He is also careful in being thrifty with his indemnity to keep costs low.

As leader, Anderson is very proud that he kept taxes low and setting affordable municipal budgets and that the projects he implemented with council are a benefit to the ratepayers.

Anderson said he has seen a lot of changes in Piney since he moved there. He said things were “going downhill fast” before he became reeve and since then he and council have managed to bring back businesses, the value of properties has increased, and the RM has become more prominent to Manitobans living outside the municipality through Sunrise Corner and other economic development initiatives.

“All of the good things we tell people, they’re getting to notice this corner, and they remember it, and they tell their relatives about it, and it’s become very popular. We’re only two hours from Winnipeg,” he said.

Anderson describes Piney as a beautiful place to live which makes it very special.

“I’m ready (for) my fourth term if I get elected. But I’d like to see a new council moving in the right direction, and I’d be very satisfied if I see that happen,” he said.

Anderson will be taking on Coun. Mark Bernard for the reeve position after Bernard’s announcement last week.