'MEET THE CANDIDATES' FRED PATTJE

Fred Pattje

Fred Pattje, 67,

Retired Air Canada employee.

Have lived permanently in Departure Bay for the last nine years; previous to that commuted for twenty-seven years, on weekends, from Vancouver, where my work base was located.

Community activist; founding member of the Departure Bay Neighbourhood Association; founding Director of FPN; served on both the 2005 and 2008 City of Nanaimo Secondary Suites Task Forces, thus steering Council towards legalizing secondary suites.

My thirty-six year " frontline " airline career has honed my people skills and conflict resolution capabilities to a high degree; I am a good listener and I know that every story, like a coin, has two sides.....

My family was in the shipbuilding business for 217 years ( in the Netherlands) and business talk was like the "soup du jour" at our dinner table; Shipbuilding was not for me, however, and I came to Canada in 1961 at the age of nineteen, on my own and much to the chagrin of my father who thought that I would come home " when the money ran out".........Never happened and Nanaimo is my home!

Five important issues facing Nanaimo :

1) Affordable Housing

2) Homelessness and Substance Abuse

3) A much diminished industrial base

4) True revitalization of our downtown

5) Environmental issues with regards to the protection of green space, rural reserve lands and agricultural land

My thoughts on and possible solutions to the above concerns, as well as others, can be found on my website www.fredpattje.com

Most rewarding aspect of public service: the opportunity to make real and lasting improvements in the lives of fellow citizens.

Most challenging, but never discouraging, aspect of public service: the reality of time lost with family and the fact that, since municipal politics/governance is much more of the " in your face" kind of variety than for instance at the federal or provincial level and consequently requires a certain amount of thick skin........I'm growing it!

Response to taxpayer/website publisher question:

1) As you know, Millennium/Suro yesterday, Oct.27th , submitted their development permit application, that is to be followed by the issuance of a building permit and then a construction contract. The submission of this development permit application is of course no guarantee whatsoever that things are on the move. Maybe I am overly suspicious, but I just hope that the timing of this application has nothing to do with the timing of the upcoming municipal election.........

We must have a hotel in order to make the PNC function as it is intended to; should this Millennium/Suro effort fail, we're back at square one. In these uncertain times when the R- word is heard more and more it would be even more difficult to start anew so, for the time being, I believe we ought to concentrate on the task at hand, which is to ensure that the Millennium deal flies!

2) The cost to the taxpayer of Nanaimo for the $40 million homeless plan is as follows:

The City would donate the land, and by that it is understood that this would be land we already hold.
The City would forgive Development Construction Charges ( DCC's ) and forego a number of permit fees
The bulk of the funding for this action five-year plan would come from the Province.
In 50 years the land and assets would revert back to the City.

" I do consider the above measures to be reasonable ones for the taxpayers of Nanaimo and am fully supportive of the City's " Housing First, Harm reduction" action plan",

Cheers,

Fred Pattje

Candidate for Nanaimo Council,

www.fredpattje.com