The following are candidates' responses to the following questions: Incumbents only: With School District 43's recent difficulties, which resulted in $13.4 million in cost cutting, and a forensic audit noting lack of control and monitoring resulted in a deficit in 2012/'13, why should anyone vote for you, an incumbent who was on the board when it happened? To non-incumbents only: If you are elected, what issue would you bring to the board's attention? To all: What is your reason for running for school trustee? Also: Do you think there is enough transparency about what goes on in the school district? If not, how would you change it?
Accounts manager, lives in Port Coquitlam
Expertise: knowledge of education system
Endorsement: none
The deficit: "A big part of our deficit has to do with the downloading and the cost-cutting from the provincial government. Have government pay [for] CPP, MSP, the raise the CUPE just got, and what teachers are getting. We did a few things wrong but this is not human error, this is downloading and not proper funding from Victoria."
Why run: "It's [for] community engagement, it's the reason to network and help them get things. If the schools know me, I can help them source it I'm a community asset, I may not always be a board asset because I don't always agree with what's going on."
Transparency: "Our budget is not that confusing, if you put it line by line in two separate columns, everyone could understand it. We could do a better job with that. That's just simplifying certain things, it's just little things that need tweaking."
Phone: 604-944-6155
