A retired chief of Kootenay Boundary Fire and Rescue wants to lend his voice to Trail city council.
Terry Martin, who retired five years ago from the five service, says he thought about running in 2018, the year after he retired, but ultimately didn’t put his name forward.
However, he’s been paying attention to the current council by reading agendas and minutes, and for the past year he’s been watching the recorded meetings.
“I want to give back to the city that I lived in and that supported me through my career,” he says.
“You’ve got to give back to where you live. You can’t just sit in the background and comment. You’ve got to step up, and I want to step up and help out as best as I can.”
Martin was born and raised in Rossland. He started as a volunteer firefighter in 1983, became a career firefighter in 1991, and was promoted to deputy regional chief in 2004 and chief in 2010.
“Being the fire chief, I had constant meetings with elected officials, with the regional district for sure, and with the east end services committee and the board on a regular basis,” he says. “So I have a good understanding of the local elected officials and the committee structures.”
Martin moved to Trail a year after retiring. In recent years he has served on the community safety task force and been a director on the hospital foundation.
He says the current council is “unfortunately divided” and he wants to promote unity.
“Whoever is elected has to park their egos at the door and go into the council meetings thinking what’s best for the city itself,” he says.
He also wants to work with other agencies to find solutions to help the vulnerable population downtown, “because that’s a major issue.”
He says the problems are not unique to Trail, and he is curious to see what council decides on Monday when it reconsiders whether to extend the operating permit to the La Nina homeless shelter.
“As a new council, it’s going to be one of the major challenges and a big issue we have to deal with right away,” he says.
Martin says he hopes the city can work with BC Housing on a solution, but otherwise doesn’t want to commit to any specific action just yet.
