Name: Jim Hinds
Party affiliation (if any): Citizen of Mission
Education: Hold a Provincial Instructor Diploma in Adult Education.
Occupation: Electrical Safety Trainer
Previous political experience: Spent nine years going to most of the council meeting in Mission
Residency (city/neighbourhood): Started work in Mission in 1969 and moved Mission in 1983 buying my home in 1984. We live in the area around Cade Barr and Best.
Community involvement: President Mission Agriculture Association 1986 - 1994
Mission Art Council Christmas Craft Fair Committee1986- 2014
Mission Candlelight Parade Marshall & Committee Organizer 1994-2014
Mission Raceway 1991 -2005 volunteer and club member.
Chamber Tourism Committee Member 5 years.
Mission Community Archives 10 years, Mission District Historical Society10 years 1 term V-President
Co-Chair Mission Community Heritage Commission. 2010-2014
Committee Member Mission Fest 2012-2014
30 Year member Royal Canadian Legion Branch 57
BC Hydro Power Pioneers 2001-2014
Recipient of Special Accomplishment Award District of Mission 1992For Centennial Parade
Marital status/children: Married wife Mary, three children, four grand daughters, two great Grand daughters.
Email: jimhinds@shaw.ca
Social media: Mission Election 2014 Jim Hinds for Council
Issues:
1) Public Safety: For the last 9 years we have been under strength for our police force. If I am elected I will work to bring our force up to its authorized strength of 50 officers, I would also work to get a police presence in the downtown area. At the present the Ambassador program does not work. We are seeing a steady increase in drug use in our downtown area. The present council is willing to spend millions by making the downtown core pretty yet at the same time reporting they have saved $800,000.00 on public safety. The last council was also going to add more full time members to the Fire Dept. This council not only cancelled that, but declared that it would not happen on their watch.
Public Safety is the most costly part of our budget, but as our population grows if we stay at the same levels we will see longer response times and our crime rate start to climb.
2) Homelessness & Poverty: A lot of the people that are on the streets have drug and alcohol problems that the needs to be addressed. I have heard many times in council that this is a provincial problem and I agree it should be, but they are underfunding the programs that are available and it is in our town we need to deal with it. We do have a stage one house on Logan that will take 20 people at a time from 30 days to a year, but there is no second stage house where people who are trying to detox can go. So what happens now is a person who is staying at the Logan building and is trying to detox has to go take a program but has to come back to the Logan residence at night. And though drugs and alcohol are not allowed on site it is still available. This causes a very low recovery rate. With a stage two house the person stays at the house until they complete the program.
3) Infrastructure repairs & replacement: The last couple of councils have put money aside in Major Capital Reserves. These funds were to be used for replacement and repair of sewer lines, storm sewers and water mains. This council got $6,000,000.00 + from the Federal government and also a gas tax refund from the Provincial government. They tried to use this money for the highway moving and downtown revitalization, but found because of restrictions they could not. So what they are doing is putting this money into Major Capital Reserves and removing money from them and putting it into General Reserves. They will then take that money and use it for the highway and downtown. At the same time telling you it will not cost the taxpayer anything. The main sewer line out of Cedar Valley has a major flaw and has failed twice. The last time it leaked raw sewerage into Lane Creek for weeks and was not repaired for nearly a year. The last two councils having been hoping that Genstar will come on line so it will not cost as much. If it fails there is no back up.