Troy Carkner seeks third council term
Troy Carkner will seek another term on Champlain Township council.
“A lot of people have been asking me,” Carkner said during a January 3 phone interview. “Me personally, if the election was tomorrow, my name would be on the ballot certainly.”
This would be the third term for Carkner as one of the two representatives for Ward 1 (Vankleek Hill) on council. The other Ward 1 seat is now open as Paul Emile Duval, its incumbent councillor, has declared that he will seek the mayor’s seat in the 2018 fall municipal election. Mayor Gary Barton has confirmed he will not run for re-election.
Carkner, who works as an Air Canada mechanical engineer, expects to file his nomination papers during the May period candidate declarations. He already knows what his main campaign platform issue is.
“We have got to stick to putting money into our roads,” he said. “That is key. That is our biggest need. We have to keep up on that.”
There are also other projects within his own ward that Carkner would like to pursue if money becomes available. He noted, however, that after going through the annual budget process every year during his past two terms, he knows that the township must keep dedicating a good portion of its capital budget to maintaining existing infrastructure and improving on it when possible. “Otherwise we will have problems,” he said.