Teacher throws his hat in

​Jesse Martin is the latest candidate to enter the race for city council.

The 35-year-old teacher was born in Penticton and has taught at Outma Sqilx’w Cultural School on the Penticton Indian Band for the past seven years. He is also a part-time fishing guide and founder of the Penticton Dodgeball League.

​Martin believes he is a strong candidate due to his community connections.

“My family are all blue-collar workers in town and own property in the industrial park. My friends are mostly young professionals that work downtown. As a teacher, I care a lot about the concerns of family and youth in our community,” he said. “Also, working on the PIB reservation for the past seven years, I want to see more ties between there and the city as well as ensure the city is welcoming and meeting the needs of everyone regardless of ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation.”

​Martin’s campaign philosophy is to “Improve the quality of life for law-abiding Penticton residents,” a four-step platform based on safety, accessibility, livelihood and technology (SALT).

“We can make a safer community by identifying areas people feel unsafe and taking measures to improve them such as improved lighting, surveillance, police and by-law presence,” said Martin. “Another important measure will be educating people on the programs we have in place for theft and crime deterrence and making sure they are accessible and easy to use.”

Accessibility, Martin explains, can be improved by ensuring elders and youth have access to public transit when they need it.

“We also need to make sure important information is accessible. We can do this with a website/app targeted at residents to help them find any community-related information from available rentals to local events and even activity partners,” said Martin. “This way all information that is important to locals can be accessed in a single place anytime.”

Property tax reform is important to make sure our residents enjoy the same quality of life as their Kelowna and Vernon counterparts. We can also add more long-term rental units by creating incentives for landlords, but also holding landlords to a standard to prevent “slumlord” situations. Additionally, by attracting more young professionals and skilled workers to our town we will ensure everyone is looked after especially our youth and elders.

Identifying weaknesses in our infrastructure through data collection and analysis can improve the quality of life for all residents,according to Martin.

“It’s a model that is working in other award-winning communities around the province and it’s time we took it more seriously,” he said. “By mobilizing citizens and staff as data collectors, we can identify problems and ensure our efforts go to where they are most needed in the community. It’s about working smarter, not harder.”

​To hold council accountable upon election, Martin believes in being in constantly available to residents, developing a set of standards to be reviewed at the beginning of each meeting, and using and continuously reviewing SMART goals to measure growth and improvement.

​Martin is available at jessemartinbc@gmail.com or on Facebook at Jesse Martin for Councillor.

Related: Who’s running in Penticton’s election?