After covering the goings on in Rocky View County for years as a reporter, first working for other publications and now with his own online publication CountyNewsOnline.ca, Enrique Massot says he wants to move from a witness to an actor in Rocky View politics.

Massot is running for county councillor in Division One, Southwest Rocky View County and Bragg Creek.  He's facing off with Mark Kamachi in the October 16th election.

Massot was born in Argentina and moved to Canada in 1990 after living in France for 10 years.  He is married to Yolanda and together they have one son Andres who's attending the University of Calgary.

He's worked as a reporter covering Rocky View County since 1999 and for the last four years has managed his online publication and driven a school bus in the county.

This is his second time running for county councillor, having first run for councillor, unsuccessfully, in Division Nine in 2010 while living northwest of Cochrane.  In 2012 he and his family moved to their current home just outside of Bragg Creek.

Massot says he wants to bring what he's learned by watching how the county works over the years and put it to work in the service of the residents in Division One.  He says people he's spoken to have told him time and again that they want to keep the character of Rocky View while allowing for moderate growth that doesn't change the character of the county radically.  

"The makeup of the county is mainly rural, agricultural, farms and ranches, county residential or small towns.  The thing that has dominated council for a few years now is growth that is not welcome for the majority of the residents and to engage in financial operations that are risky for the county.  What usually is said is that development will help the county but it's not always true.  Sometimes development costs the county more in services than it brings impact.  My conclusion to this is that growth has to come but the municipality must be careful when it approves development proposals,  All the financial ends must be very clear and the residents must have a voice."

Massot says he proposes welcoming growth that becomes a benefit to each community since Rocky View is, what he calls, a community of commnities"

On his website, Massot outlines several items that he considers priorities in his election platform and he believes putting county residents first is the number one item on the list.

"What the community wants, what the community needs and work from there.  Now, the residents are brought a proposal that's already been done, do a couple of open houses and then proceed to approve it.  To me the process must go in the opposite direction, you have to start with the community.  Let's say you have a residential development proposal, you can start working with the community before the project has been designed and let the community participate on that design.  If you engage the community on a proposal, that proposal has more chance to be accepted by the community and approved by the council." 

Massot says the current system is adversarial.  "A developer puts up their own project then comes to the community, does a couple of open houses then regardless of what the community says it goes to council and council sometimes approves those even if the community didn't have much of a say or if the community was totally opposed.  Putting residents first means a totally different process."

Massot says he's been learning about Rocky View for the past 17 years and has had some opinion on how business should be conducted since the mid 2000's.  

"What I offer is experience that's been consistent for a decade and I have expressed that through my publications and participation in some resident's meetings.  My principles aren't going to change when I'm on council.  I offer a position that's lasted for many years and will keep going through my role as a councillor for the next four years."