If elected, how do you plan to stay informed about the needs and concerns of the community?
The simple answer is by showing up and being easy to find. Between now and October 17th, I’m hoping to have as many conversations as possible with neighbours, and that won’t stop if I’m elected. People stop me on the street now, and that’s great. The other reliable spot is any of the coffee shops in town, which I do my best to rotate through in a given week.
Past that, I want to be careful not to promise consultation on everything, because taking that time carries a real cost. The trigger for me is when a topic extends outside the bounds of technical best practice and lands firmly in policy and personal preference. That’s the moment to check in with folks, so there’s ownership in the community for the direction that gets set. Council and the municipality are bodies of, for, and by the people of this community. Council is elected to make the final decisions, but those decisions are best made with the best information available, and there’s a cost to not asking questions before deciding, too. Proactivity is the key to all of it.
I’ll keep answering questions directly. My email is wes@wesroutley.ca, and I encourage people to reach out.
What is your vision for the future of Golden, and how would you work toward that vision if elected? People tend to ask about vision expecting a new grand plan, and my honest answer is that we just finished the planning. The Official Community Plan is adopted, a path for infrastructure is set, housing is being built, and Council has a strategic plan worth following. What Golden needs now is a term of follow-through and proactivity, and a municipality residents can trust while it happens.
By the end of the next term, I’d like to see the cycle of infrastructure underinvestment broken, and budgets that are honest about what things cost and fair about who pays for them. I’d like homes getting built in forms that fit our neighbourhoods and that allow loved ones and friends to be able to age in place. It would be amazing to see a project underway to support workforce housing, so the folks who work here can afford to live here. Ideally, these four years also finally see the Community Forest in Golden and Area realized, supporting both our primary and secondary economies.
Some of this is personal. This community helped raise me, and I’d love for that same opportunity to be there for as many kids as possible, and for friends older and younger who are trying to put down roots here. The bylaw work ahead matters for exactly that reason, because it decides how simple it is for folks to build a little bit of something their own in Golden. And I hope that by 2030, engaging with the municipality and the regional district feels worth people’s time, with folks knowing their contribution counts.
Working toward that from the chair begins with a good orientation and handover, since so many at the table will be there for the first time. From there, my push would be a focused first year: pick what moves first, and finish it, instead of handing a long list to the next Council. Golden also has to keep up the regional work it can’t do alone, whether that’s fair cost-sharing with our neighbours in the regional district, or advocacy with the Province, where so many of the decisions that matter to us actually get made.
What previous experience do you have that will help you serve effectively on Council? For the past four years, I’ve done two demanding jobs at once: serving on Golden Town Council and helping start and grow a small business in town. At Stolen Bell Distillery, I look after the admin side alongside an amazing team, so my normal week includes budgets, compliance, payroll and cash flow. Currently, a lot of my time is spent supporting the team in all they do and streamlining our operations so that I can commit full-time attention to the Mayor’s role. Much of Council’s responsibility comes down to fiscal prudence and policy, and I’ve demonstrated both in the public and private sectors.
To be clear, government shouldn’t be run exactly like a business. But that business experience, particularly within a circular economy model and from startup through to operations, provides a ton of context for how investments and systemic reviews of policies and bylaws affect how work gets done.
Over and above the Council work, I’ve taken on the regional files. I learned regional governance at the Columbia Shuswap Regional District, was elected by Kootenay colleagues to the board of the Association of Kootenay and Boundary Local Governments, and I sat on a provincial working group looking to reform the Local Government Act so we can better serve residents and meet the challenges we all face. At our last AKBLG convention, the membership took up a resolution I brought through Golden on tax fairness for tourism properties, making a review that started here regional.
What do you believe are the three most important issues facing Golden over the next four years, and why? First, updating how we pay for the services we depend on. Some of our infrastructure is 50 to 70 years old and due for replacement, without enough saved over that lifespan to cover it. We’re not special in that, and nobody should be blaming Golden or past Councils; it’s endemic across Canada, really. But it does mean we’re now in the ‘find out’ phase of asset management. This term we started changing the approach, with our utilities on a three-year path to paying for themselves. Unfortunately, that means that utility bills have gone up, but the alternative was leaving a bigger bill for future generations.
The bigger change is recognizing that residents aren’t alone in using this infrastructure. The Province has been clear that it wants tourism revenues to grow over the coming decade, and that’s a fantastic opportunity for them to invest a bit now in the infrastructure that supports the sector, relieving some of the capital pressure on residents. The rules need updating too, because right now tourism dollars can’t go toward maintaining that infrastructure. That needs to change.
Second, housing and commercial opportunity. With the Official Community Plan updated, the Zoning Bylaw is next, and I see it as Council’s greatest chance to remove barriers to gentle density and starting a business in town. Workforce housing conversations to support the tourism sector, and consequently the entire community, are a big priority too. Some of the project-specific changes are already working, with Cornerstone under construction and other projects on the way. All of it helps the long-term tax and fee affordability for residents, as we make more efficient use of the infrastructure already in the ground rather than paying to expand it.
Third, engagement with the community and with our partners. The recent time observance decision highlighted a clear area for improvement for me: conversation and engagement with the community. Whether you’re a renter or an owner, folks have skin in the game here, and they should feel encouraged to ask questions and raise concerns. That must be modelled from the Mayor’s chair, with residents heard before direction is set, and a proper report back afterward. To help the regular business meetings run smoothly, I also feel really strongly that Council should consider a Select Committee approach to certain topics, like Recreation. Ultimately that’s up to Council, though. The same goes for our partners, because so much of what Golden needs, from the regional district to the Province, is built on relationships, and those take consistent work.
Tell us a little about yourself and your connection to Golden: My name is Wes Routley, and I’m running for Mayor. My family moved to Golden in 1998, so for my entire conscious life I’ve called this town home. I’m a product of Golden, and the community has had a lasting impact on me.
Early on, I wanted to contribute to the town I loved. That started with fundraising for winter bird feed at age six and kept going: helping get the Youth Centre started, the Interact Club of Golden, Army Cadets, Columbia Basin Trust’s Youth Advisory Committee, and grad exec and valedictorian at the high school.
In my adult life, that’s carried on as a business developer and a continued volunteer. Stolen Bell Distillery has been the bulk of my adult career. I was the project manager and now run the admin side. I’m deeply proud of what we’ve accomplished there so far and grateful for the team.
The volunteering takes some fun shapes these days. You might catch me at a community weed pull, lending my voice to EmberFest as a narrator, wearing a silly bear onesie in a Tourism Golden video about being Bear Aware, or in waders and a fish hat for another one about invasive aquatic species and the importance of Clean, Drain, Dry.
When there’s time left over, I’m usually on a bike or Nordic skis, with the odd game of pickleball.
Why have you decided to run for Golden Town Mayor? I’ll be honest that the title has never been the draw for me. What draws me is the work.
My journey with Council started in the public gallery. I began going to meetings and asking questions as a resident because so much of daily life runs through local government, and I wanted to understand how it all worked. In 2022, with encouragement from sitting Councillors, I put my name forward, and Golden gave me the chance to serve. I have loved every minute of it, even the tougher bits. So much of these past four years has been about setting the next term up for success, and I’m running for Mayor to support Council in seeing that through.
It helps to know that BC municipalities run on what’s called a weak mayor system. The chair isn’t a bigger vote. The Mayor’s real responsibility is the smooth flow of the meetings, something I’ve had the chance to demonstrate when I chaired meetings this term, so that Council’s direction is clear and acted on at the political level. Add to that being the spokesperson and carrying Golden’s advocacy with the Province and our other partners.
There are practical reasons why I’m running as well. More than half of the next Council will be new faces, and continuity on the files is going to be critical.
