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Council candidate stresses common sense

Experienced public servant Roslyn Woodcock wants you to vote for her for city council. She told the News this week that her campaign team has finally come up with a slogan that fits her perfectly: Common sense, common ground, common good.
woodcock

Experienced public servant Roslyn Woodcock wants you to vote for her for city council.

She told the News this week that her campaign team has finally come up with a slogan that fits her perfectly: Common sense, common ground, common good.

“To me it summarizes so well what my platform is, because it’s so much about me being pragmatic, wanting to work together, and really wanting to work for what is the common good of the community,” said Woodcock.

Woodcock has spent the better part of the last 12 years working in the public service.

Most recently, she worked for the Canadian government as the executive director of the Yukon Federal Council. Her job was to take the federal agenda and tailor it to the specific needs of the Yukon, and more generally, to “build better government,” Woodcock said.

That’s what she wants to do next at the city level, she said.

“What I bring is fundamental belief in that system, passion about that system, and patience for that system that most people don’t have,” said Woodcock.

Woodcock is a big supporter of the city’s composting program and believes it should be expanded, despite concerns that it could be attracting bears.

“The reality is all of this compost always existed - separating it into a new bin did not cause this problem,” Woodcock wrote on her campaign website.

The solution, instead, should be to better inform residents on how to keep their compost and garbage out of the reach of wildlife, she added.

She believes ATVs should be regulated and that residents need to give the new bylaw a chance, her website states.

Woodcock also wrote that the city can do more to welcome pets inside public buildings and generally make Whitehorse a pet-friendly community.

Despite her strong opinions, Woodcock insisted that she does not have a specific agenda. Her intention, rather, is to make the system work towards the best solution for everyone.

“What benefits you or what you think is the right thing isn’t really that important. What’s important is that you are working towards whatever is best for the community,” said Woodcock.

As a resident of Downtown South, she knows she will have to endure some growing pains as the city rolls out its development plan for the area. But it will be well worth it, she said.

“Of course, I’m not looking forward to the noise, but it’s an awesome project and really important for our community. I’m really excited about it.”

Woodcock has a degree in city planning, and would like to work with initiatives like the Downtown South Master Plan to make Whitehorse a better place.

Every part of what the city does is exciting to her because it touches the community directly, Woodcock said.

Woodcock learned the importance of working towards the public good as a young person in Saskatchewan.

“The big thing for me as I was growing up was, you know, with all the rights that you get as a citizen, you have an equal number of responsibilities.”

She spent a summer in the Yukon as a university student in the ‘80s, and always knew she would come back.

Woodcock moved here for good in 1999, after a stint working in Inuvik.

She calls Whitehorse “one of the last small towns in Canada.”

Other communities of the same size just don’t have the same level of services that we have, because people are just expected to drive to the closest city, said Woodcock.

“This is such an awesome community. It’s where I live. So I want to be a part of the evolution.”

Contact Jacqueline Ronson at

jronson@yukon-news.com