A Nelson city councillor is looking to be re-elected after being elected to his first term in 2018.
Rik Logtenberg is looking to continue to build on the work council has done, especially with the growing threat climate change poses on the city.
“We have done a lot,” says Logtenberg. “There is a lot more to go in the next term, and it means a lot to me. I want to see it continue.”
Logtenberg says he was initially uncertain about running for re-election but encouragement from other people in the community was enough for him to put his nomination in.
“It is not that I was really a hard no,” he says. “It was a 48/52 sort of thing, and that encouragement was enough to push me over the line.”
Logtenberg says the city is coming into an uncertain future with climate change, and with the unpredictability of the weather patterns, that should be concerning.
“We have had to deal with some pretty intense wildfire events,” he says. “The severe storms we have had really impacted the budgets for all the services of Nelson.”
He says the city has developed a plan to deal with these events, known as Nelson Next, but it is just the beginning of what has to happen.
“I was part of the emergency management committee,” he says. “We have developed a strong plan for preparing to deal with these events, but it’s not nearly enough. That work has just begun.”
Logtenberg is the founder of the Climate Leadership Caucus, which is a group of elected officials that pushes for provincial and federal funding for various municipal-level projects related to climate change
