Election Notice Graeme Shelford for Trustee

My background was in aviation and ended up with me as a Director of Maintenance at Canadian Airlines in charge of a department of 500 people with an annual budget of $100 million. On retiring I moved to Thetis full time in 1996 and joined the fire department in 1999, spending 16 years as a volunteer, 10 of them as Deputy Chief. On retiring from the fire department in 2015, I was appointed as a trustee of the Improvement District filling a vacancy. I have been re-elected twice since.

The challenge for the Improvement District is how to fulfill its Letters Patent mandate to “acquire, maintain and operate works and equipment for fire protection purposes and all matters incidental thereto” with a very small residential tax base and virtually no commercial tax base, when running a fire department costs as much in a small community as in a medium sized one. My approach has been two pronged, I have applied for any grants available working with Chief Caldbeck and brought in $68,000 in grants for the fire department over the past 3 years.

Chief Caldbeck had always wanted a charitable society for extra support for the fire department and after joining the Improvement District, I set about establishing such a society and getting it charitable status in 2019. The Society has had $70,274 in donations and fundraising since inception, not all of which has been spent yet.

Re-elect me and I will continue this work.