James Sieben is seeking to be the candidate representing youth issues in his bid to be the next mayor of North Battleford.
“My main motivation, I suppose, was just to get the youth voice heard”, said Sieben, who at 22 years old is the youngest candidate in the race.
He works at a lab technician at Parkview Optometric Services and is He has studied at McGill and is currently doing an online computer science degree through the University of Regina, taking two classes at the moment.
“I didn’t think there was anybody really young running and I didn’t think the youth was being represented, so I wanted to be that person,” said Sieben, who has grown up in North Battleford and went to John Paul II Collegiate.
His main concern, he said, is to “let the people’s voice be heard, and I think I’m a pretty good listener and can bring that to the table.”
Sieben believes a number of youth concerns are not being addressed and would make those a priority.
“The main thing is there’s not much for youth to do after 9 o’clock,” said Sieben, “and then after that a lot of the youth get into gangs, get into drugs. The main way to curb that would be to introduce more activities for young people around the town. And that is not being addressed at the moment.”
On other issues, Sieben said he would like to see more resources devoted to fire and emergency services in the city. But he is not a fan of the community safety officer program and says it should be cancelled.
“I don’t feel they’re really doing much around the town,” said Sieben. He said he’s heard people say the CSOs aren’t necessary, and who complain about being given tickets by the CSOs.
Instead of CSOs, Sieben would “like to see more funding for the RCMP and local police.”
Sieben also has concerns about the downtown revitalization work done, particularly the road and undergrounds work.
“I understand that they’ve done it to replace the piping which is OK, but I suppose some of the lanes aren’t done right, some of the turning lanes are weird,” said Sieben. “I think there was way too much money spent on it, and way too long a time period spent on it.”
As for budget issues, that is one area that Sieben believes is being done well. “I would just continue what’s being done over the last four years.”
For this campaign, Sieben isn’t planning to send out brochures. Instead he is getting his message out as best he can, mainly online.
“I just want to thank everybody who has supported me so far,” said Sieben. “I’ve had a number of people approach me and say they would vote for me so I’m very happy to hear that.”
