Mike Randall announced his candidacy for the municipal election earlier this year. He squares off against Amanda Shatzko for Regional District of North Okanagan area C.
Having lived in the BX for over 40 years, Randall said that what he bring to the table is a variety of experiences that make him uniquely qualified for the job.
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“I was studying at the University of Toronto and I came out here on a two week vacation. Within a few days of being here, I had a job and that sort of forced me into thee deep end because I was the coordinator for the Vernon Winter Carnival in 1976 and that was a big job. And I never left,” he said. “The lifestyle here just can’t be beat.”
He soon became entrenched in the community: he became highly involved at SilverStar while also running a full-time beekeeping/farming operation in the BX.
“I was able to both that [beekeeping] and SilverStar because beekeeping is busy in summer and SilverStar is much busier in winter.”
At first, Randall became a volunteer ski patrol and made his way up the ladder to full-time ski patroller and, eventually became the ski patrol director. From there, he was hired as the program manager for the Putnam Creek ski area expansion, which tripled the size of the ski area. Then he was hired as the mountain manager. He ran all the outdoor operations for ten years and was also in charge of planning and development.
He said this experience coupled with his experience owning the business has given him with the tools necessary to be successful if elected.
“It’s important to know that I’ve been at the Regional District on both sides of the counter: applying for building permits and discussing them.”
After retiring from Silver Star in 2003, he became a part Advisory Planning Council for Area C.
“I’ve been on many of the Regional District committees since retiring in 2003. I was alternate director for many years but withdrew from that in 2016 because I was involved in the SilverStar marketing task force to establish the Resort Association,” he said. “Right now we’re in the petition process so hopefully we will succeed in the petition and we’ll finally have a community voice.”
If elected, he said he plans to focus on a number of issues — from advocating for BX park to stay in public hands to supporting the Cultural Centre referendum — but, he said, advocating for the entire district is his main goal.
“It’s always been an issue with the Regional District. Having sat at the board table, I know that you really need to stand up for the electoral areas. Individually — or even as a group — they’re not a majority. The city of Vernon and district of Coldstream kind of do what they want so you have to be able to negotiate and find some common ground with the city and with Coldstream and that takes experience because that’s the biggest thing: to have a strong voice for the electoral area and work with the city and with Coldstream and still get what we want.”
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