MOOSOMIN — Since coming to Moosomin a decade ago, Steven Gillis continues to be impressed with how welcoming the community truly is.
“We’ve been well received. It’s been a warm environment for the for us to join in, my wife is a teacher, and this is my effort to give back to the community that’s been a great place to live,” he said.
When asked about his priorities should he be elected to Moosomin town council, Gillis was quick to note the enthusiasm for many key projects in the region.
“I really like some of the things that we’ve done recently as a community,” he said. “We’ve got the runway that was recently completed, the hospital was done shortly before we moved here, we’ve got a daycare expanding, we’ve got housing expansion—there’s a lot of growth and a lot of opportunity coming up in Moosomin. I want to keep that going. I want to help facilitate that, but I don’t have any one or two personal projects that I feel we need to get pushed to get done.”
Maintaining that forward momentum is important to Gillis, something he sees as uniquely forward-thinking for a community.
“I want to keep the progress that I’ve seen going,” he said. “I want to keep that growth, I want to keep that optimism and that forward thinking. It’s really fascinating to move to a small town, and they’re not just trying to solve yesterday’s problems today, but they’re actively looking at solving problems that are coming up. The water treatment plant is a perfect example—it’s built with the intention of supporting the growth that we’re targeting in the community.”
Gillis also sees his perspective as a relatively recent addition to the community as an asset.
“I don’t have years or generations of history here, I have a very different viewpoint from a lot of the other councillors that are running, because I don’t have the same ties and I don’t have the same involvement.”
A variety of backgrounds make up a more well-rounded council in Gillis’ view.
“I think it’s also important that we have the six positions, let’s get six different views. We don’t need six carbon copies of the same thing, we want to get as many views as possible, to represent as many people as possible in the area,” he said. “Being somebody that moved here gives me a little bit of a different perspective. That might be to an advantage if we’re trying to grow the community and get more people to move here as well.
“Our local government has done a really good job at making sure that we’ve got stuff for everybody,” he said. “They’re not just solely focused on one group or one avenue, where it’s only the healthcare side of things, or it’s only new parents. They’ve done a good job of supporting programs across the spectrum so that we’re able to support a larger demographic versus just one small portion of it.”Steven Gillis
