Name: Tony Luck
Party affiliation (if any): N/A
Education: Bachelor Business Administration and Bachelor of Arts - History
Occupation: Financial Consultant: Investors Group Financial Services
Previous political experience: three year term as councilor District of Mission
Residency (city/neighbourhood): Mission: Cedar Valley
Community involvement: Director Mission Community Foundation, Director Fraser Valley Regional District, Chair Emeritus University of the Fraser Valley Alumni Association, Scouting, Director Abbotsford Mission Water and Sewer Commission.
Marital status/children: Single, 6 children, 10 grandchildren
Email: tjluck@shaw.ca
Social media: luck4mayor.com
Issues:
As one of the candidates for Mayor I recognize the importance of many issues facing our wonderful community. Homelessness, Public Safety, Downtown Revitalization, Economic development, environmental sustainability and stewardship, the infrastructure deficit, tourism and of course taxation. Representing only one vote on council in a traditional weak mayor system it will be important for the new Mayor to gain the trust of council and work closely with them to move Mission forward in a respectful and collaborative way.
I strongly believe that this election for the Mayor's seat is really about Leadership, Vision and Citizen Engagement. The new Mayor must set a positive tone for the rest of council to follow and rebuild bridges both inside and outside the community.
In regards to Leadership, I believe the last three years have been challenging. I want to work on rebuilding the trust of staff, council and the public. I want to ensure everyone, that under my leadership, no one will feel that they are being mistreated. Having said that, sometimes the answer will be "no" or "not at this time." Part of my leadership will be to recognize my weaknesses. One of them is my knowledge and understanding of the homelessness and mental health issues. Thus I will be establishing a Mayor's Task Force on Homelessness and Social Issues to help find ways to deal with these growing problems. For the most part these issues belong to the other two levels of government, but as a city we are dealing with them at a very personal level. Part of the mandate of the task force will be to find ways to advocate for the funding and resources needed to deal effectively with these issues within our community.
Vision is a tricky concept because every one of us will have a different idea of what they want our community to look like in five or ten or 40 years. I have expressed my vision of having a vibrant, active, FUN community in a few years. I see Mission becoming a tourist hot spot with a revitalized downtown featuring exciting restaurants and boutique shops for the tourists and locals and a dynamic West Stave recreational area to draw people in from all over the lower mainland. I believe that in the short term tourism will become one of main economic drivers in Mission.
To further develop these ideas and others I will be establishing a Mayor's Citizens Advisory Committee to help develop and prioritize community initiatives and projects. It's part of a bigger plan to establish stronger Citizen Engagement in our community and will engage regular citizen to apprise council of possible initiatives and project for Mission. I would also like to appoint a Council member to chair a small community task force on eDemocracy and eVoting. It's time we moved into the twenty-first century and moved to voting online. Many cities and towns across Canada are doing this and I would like to see Mission be a leader in BC and establish online voting for the 2018 election. We could also use eVoting to engage citizen by holding referendums on key issues like major spending initiatives such as the Senior's Centre or a new Leisure Centre etc.