Kevin Hanson wants to provide his same proven leadership in the newly-created Division One.

He was elected the Division 3 councillor in the 2017 election. With boundary changes, it's now part of Division 1 that stretches west to Bragg Creek, incorporates the southern part of the Springbank area, and continues into the Elbow Valley, where he resides.

He believes in sustainable and responsible growth that is fully funded, so it won't become a tax burden to existing residents. He believes the county must foster a strong relationship with its neighbouring municipalities. That includes working cooperatively with the Calgary Metropolitan Region Board (CMRB).

He believes in the protection of the Elbow River watershed to ensure property values aren't negatively impacted. He also believes Bragg Creek, Elbow Valley, and Springbank should continue to serve as model examples of the variety of rural lifestyle communities that are available in the region. 

Like other Alberta municipalities, he says Rocky View is facing a tough road ahead for infrastructure funding.

"The province is drying up, and I think we're really going to have to look hard and do some searching on how to be a little more effective with dwindling infrastructure dollars or else taxes are going to go up while the economy slowly recovers."

When the new council takes office, they'll need to find a new chief administrative officer (CAO). Currently, that position is being filled by acting CAO Kent Robinson. He says Rocky View has had difficulty in attracting good talent in the past because of its poor reputation. He believes the council will have to do a good sales job.

"We're going to need a little bit of rebuilding on the administration side. We're going to have to patch up relationships within the region and we want someone with the chops that can basically go into meetings with Calgary administration, be really smart, be able to negotiate and meet as equals and figure out how to grow the pie, the revenue shares, and cost-sharing."

He says the new council will be revisiting both the Springbank and Bearspaw Area Structure Plans (ASP) that were turned down by the CMRB.

"There was good engagement for four years," he says specifically about the Springbank ASP, "but the last six months seemed to have been hijacked. As a result, it was refused by the region because of the heavy commercial emphasis that was put into it."

He wants to see customer service improve and see timelines streamlined on development applications.

Hanson was one of the three county councillors that faced sanctions during the last term.

He says there was an attempt to put it all behind when Reeve Dan Henn took the chair about a year ago, but it didn't receive sufficient support.

"Unfortunately, there's a core set of holdouts that just won't budge. They're quite stubborn and quite willing to spending taxpayers' dollars chasing egos, in my humble opinion. But with a new council, I believe we can put this to bed."

He calls it a dark chapter in the county's history book and hopes a bright light will shine in the future.

"It's pretty hard to get any worse than it has been the last four years, and when you're down that low there's nowhere to go but up. I'm really looking forward to a much better performing council and a much happier staff."

Hanson says residents can't complain if they don't vote and encourages everyone to make their choices.