Rocky View County division 9 councillor Bruce Kendall says great strides have been made the last four years by the county and he has announced his intentions to seek a second four-year term this fall to continue his work.

In the dying months of his first term, Kendall says it has been challenging, but believes much has been accomplished. He says 85-90 per cent of the goals council set at the beginning of their term in 2013 have been checked off and that, he's been told by other long-term councillors, is a major accomplishment.

"It certainly has not been easy but inspite of the difficultiies we faced we actually accomplished quite a bit," says Kendall.

Still, he believes there's much work to do.

Much of his focus in his first term has been on changing processes. He points out  60-70 per cent of applications are now being completed within the timelines alotted in the Municipal Government Act by eliminating some of the bureaucacy

"We're trying to get it better. We've adopted the principle of continuous improvement. Every time I'm on development appeal board we take at look at whether it needed to come there."

The appeal process can delay a project for one or two months and some are relatively small in nature.

He wants to see RVC look further down the road when considering the infrastructure ramifications of residential developments that are now underway or being planned.

"We really have to come to grips with land developments that are currently underway in Rocky View as to what infrastructure do we need and what does it mean to us, not just in the next four-year election cycle, more like what does it mean to us in the next 20 to 40 years."

He also wants the county to continue to aggressively pursue nonresidential developments and that means investing in infrastructure planning. The county currently has a tax base differential of 73 residential, 27 per cent nonresidential and they have set a target to increase that number to 35 per cent.

"They're good for business, they'e good for Rocky View County and they're good for residents because it helps maintain a lower tax rate on residential properties. How do we continue to attract that kind of business investment in RVC? It requires long-range infrastructure planning to be successful."

Last election two other candidates ran in division 9 and of the 886 people casting ballots, Kendall received 387. He was followed by Norman Kent with 297 votes and Jill Cairns with 202.

Prior to running for RVC council, Kendall was previously reeve and deputy reeve when he was a resident of the Municipal District of Bighorn.

Division 9 basically surrounds Cochrane to the west, north and east and two of its largest communities are Bottrel and Cochrane Lake.