The mayor of Smithers now sits on the BC Transit’s board of directors.
Gladys Atrill has been appointed and she joins the mayors of Mission, Sooke, Victoria, as well as three continuing members.
She said she was a bit surprised to be asked to join.
“I received a call from the minister who was at the time recruiting new board members, and there is a requirement for local government representation on the board,” she said. “And so he was just calling people and chatting with them and asked me if I would be interested in considering that. And after a little bit of thought, I said, yes.”
The BC Transit board of directors is responsible for supervising the management of BC Transit and appointing the chief executive officer.
Atrill isn’t sure if there will be a direct result or benefit to Smithers with her being on the board. However, she said it’s an opportunity to show what smaller communities need from a transit system.
Atrill wants to make sure the perspective of rural and small towns is represented because transit is different in smaller communities. it is not just about transit within the individual towns, but about connecting communities with other communities, she said.
“So it’s a little bit different here than in, you know, specific parts of BC,” she added. ”We rely on configurations of transit as well, to go from Smithers to Houston to Burns Lake and on to Prince George, there are connections there through various transit systems. So we benefit from transit in different ways than just, you know, with [how] the city transit system operates.”
READ MORE: ‘It’s not fair’: Long road ahead for B.C. transit improvements
@MariscaDekkema
marisca.bakker@interior-news.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.