This past Monday saw the end of the Terrace City Council careers for several people, and that included the longest serving member of Terrace City Council, Brian Downie.
After a tenure on Council that lasted 21 years, Downie decided not to run in the recent municipal election and offically retired from his councillor duties.
We recently caught up with Brian to ask why he made the choice to move onto this new phase of life and how he felt about it;
“I’m satisfied with my decision to leave. I think that not running again made sense to me, I’ve got things to do, I’m getting older. It was time to let younger folks have their chance.”
Downie then explained how the idea to run for City Council came to him initially;
“I had just retired from the Forest service in 2003 and I was involved with the second ice sheet project, so I had connections with the City. I was working with them and trying to find a way to get that project completed, along with a very active group of colleagues. And then councillor Carol Leclerc twisted my arm and said you ought to think about running for council. She’s very persuasive. So I ran in 2005 and was elected.
Downie also went onto disclose what he thought was the City’s greatest accomplishment during his time on council;
“I think our biggest accomplishment was working with the hospital district and Northern Helath to advocate for the new hospital. The old hospital served it’s time for 60 years and we needed a new facility. It was a difficult project for the government to spend that kind of money on it, so Mayor Leclerc and councillor at the time, Sean Bujtas, and the rest of council talked to the premier about the needs for Terrace and the parts of the old hospital that needed improvment. I think we were able to make a convincing argument to the premier, she talked to her ministers and shortly afterwards, we heard it was approved. I think that was a big accomplishment for us. Obviously it’s a very expensive project and I was glad the city had a role in that.
As for what he’ll do next, he said that his various endeavours with local volunteer work will continue to keep him busy for the forseeable future.