Ki’suk kyukyit. My name is Lynnette Wray, and I’m running to represent you on Cranbrook City Council.

My husband and I love living in Cranbrook. We feel so fortunate to be raising our family here, in this beautiful part of ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa. We enjoy the network of local bike trails, time on the ice playing hockey, the vibrant and growing arts scene, and the businesses and services in our downtown core and throughout our community.

25 years of working in the local non-profit sector have given me unique insight into the many community services that make our community a great place to live. As an experienced non-profit professional, it’s my job to carefully steward donor dollars, and I will bring that experience to the council table.

I’m honoured to sit as a Director on the Board of the East Kootenay Community Credit Union, where I’ve gained six years of real-world experience in governance. I’m also a member of the Cranbrook Sunrise Rotary Club, including serving as Club President.

As the largest centre in the Kootenays, the City of Cranbrook needs and deserves excellent governance and leadership. I will use my skills, knowledge, and experience to ensure that thorough due diligence, appropriate oversight, and transparent decision-making are the norm around the Council table.

I will work to grow and enhance a positive, proactive, and professional organizational culture. This includes contributing to a productive working relationship between council and management, embracing diversity, creativity, and innovation, and ensuring that city staff have the skills and resources they need to provide excellent customer service.

Housing and homelessness are clearly high-priority concerns for our community. These are complex problems that cannot be solved by any one agency or organization alone. We need to work together to identify and implement multi-pronged, solution-focused strategies. This includes creating collaborative, effective working relationships in order to offer a variety of affordable, attainable, and supportive housing options.

I deeply value and respect our local small businesses, and I look forward to working with the business community to identify and address barriers, streamline processes, and make the best possible use of technology.

Here in Cranbrook, in beautiful ʔamakʔis Ktunaxa, we’re facing a number of key challenges, including concerns about city governance, the multi-faceted problems of housing and homelessness, climate change, aging infrastructure, shortage of family doctors, limited daycare availability – it’s a daunting list!

Cranbrook is at a crossroads. We can choose new approaches and new ideas.

In this election, we can choose to embrace inclusion, recognizing that Cranbrook’s diversity is one of our key strengths, including all age groups, genders, sexual orientations, cultural backgrounds, and abilities. We need to value, recognize, and tap into this pool of diversity, to enrich and improve our community.

We can choose to commit to our vision of liveable, sustainable growth for Cranbrook, supporting our local economy while also preserving our natural environment, seeking partners in the for-profit and not-for-profit sector who support our vision and will help us create the Cranbrook we see for our children and grandchildren.

We can choose to truly leverage the city’s capacity to lead, to bring key stakeholders to the table to find creative, collaborative solutions to the challenges we face, learning from the best practices from other communities and adapting them to Cranbrook.

We can choose to become champions of excellent governance, ensuring that thorough due diligence, appropriate oversight, and transparent decision-making and communications are fully integrated into all aspects of the City of Cranbrook.

We can choose to work together to make Cranbrook an even better place to live, work, and play.

This is an important election. For a fresh perspective and a fresh voice, on Oct. 15 please vote Lynnette Wray for Cranbrook city council.

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