Duane Hicks
With the municipal election coming up Oct. 25, Coun. Sharon Tibbs is the first person to file her nomination to run for town council again.
Coun. Tibbs, who has served on council for 16 years in all, including a 12-year stint from 1991-2003 and then this current term (2006-10), officially put her hat in the ring last Thursday afternoon.
“I am invested in this community,” she said in an interview Friday. “My family is here. All of my family live and work in Fort Frances.
“I think you could say I have around me all of the facets of our community,” she remarked. “Marty and I are retired. I have children working in [union jobs] and in business, Barb has the store.
“I have grandchildren in the education system, and I am interested in all the amenities this community provides for those children and for families.
“I have a passion for this town,” Coun. Tibbs added. “There’s always good things that you deal with, and things that are not so good.
“I don’t come to the table with the agenda,” she stressed. “I have an open mind, I listen to people. We may not always agree, but I can assure people I do my homework.
“And I think that I still have the energy that I’d like to do it one more time.”
Coun. Tibbs acknowledged she’s undergone treatment for cancer in the past year, but said that hasn’t stopped her from doing her job as councillor this term nor in the future.
“I don’t think it’s affected what I’ve done at city hall,” she remarked. “I’ve had some times when I have had to have treatment and gone and done that.
“I have a lot of confidence in the people that work with me, and anything that happened to me during that period of time from having access to everything everyone else did and still continued to make sure I kept up on it,” she said, noting she only missed three council meetings.
“People deal with health issues in all kinds of forms. It doesn’t affect their capability if they’re committed to what they’re doing,” Coun. Tibbs reasoned.
“I had the surgery, I had the treatments, and I have had two clean check-ups.
“There’s some long-term stuff that always happens when you take radiation, but that’s no different for anybody,” she stressed. “That doesn’t make me special.”
Coun. Tibbs said she knows plenty of people in the community that do “unbelievable things, give of themselves as volunteers, and have significant health issues.”
“That is what keeps them going—the fact they’re committed to what they do,” she explained.
Coun. Tibbs said the current term of council has seen its share of challenges for the town, but she has a lot of faith in the future of Fort Frances.
“We’re survivors as a community,” she remarked. “You look at what’s happening around us and we seem to band together and work at it.
“When times, and decisions, get tough, you have to look at the good things that you’ve done and the good things about the community,” she added.
“We’re lucky. I think we have a very nice community here and I want it to continue to grow and thrive so that professional people are attracted to this community.
“We’ve got the facilities for them to have a full lifestyle, and those professional people are the people that care of us,” Coun. Tibbs noted.
“We need to keep doing things, progressing, progressing, progressing, so that professional people will want to be part of us and be here for us,” she argued, noting the library, theatre, recreation facilities, pools, ice surfaces, and sports fields are necessary to attract those people.
“Through all of this, through all the hard times, the big word is ‘balance,’” Coun. Tibbs said. “You have to try to see how much can we do across the board, and see if we keep things in a positive way.
“Our infrastructure is getting to the point [where it needs to be replaced], and we know that it has to be done. But it has to be done systematically—we can’t jump and do everything.
“Financially, you can’t do it.
“There’s a multitude of things you have to look at,” she noted. “It’s a mosaic. It’s pieces, and you have to keep the pieces in place and in balance.
“I guess I am telling the community that I will do it again for them, if they want me to.”
While she encouraged others to put their names forward to run for council, Coun. Tibbs advised it takes true commitment and is not to be taken lightly.
“People have to fully realize how much time this job takes,” she remarked. “People see you on television a couple times a month, and think that’s all that you’re there.
“There’s probably 40 or more hours that have gone into [that meeting].
“You can’t pick and choose what you want to be concerned about,” she stressed. “What you have to do is be there for all issues. That’s a total commitment.
“Know full well that when you step into this, there’s a tremendous commitment of time. You’re in it for a long time,” she later warned. “Four years is a long time.
“That change [from three-year terms] is dramatic and you really have to think it out thoroughly before you do it,” she said.
Nominations to run for town council, or trustee positions on the local school boards, opened Jan. 4.
Anyone interested in running must file their papers at the Civic Centre prior to 2 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 10.
For more information about nominations, contact town clerk Glenn Treftlin at the Civic Centre (274-5323).
