Novice politician wants to serve just one term
By Kelli Corscadden
This election will not be the beginning of a long political career for physicist Steve Sweeney. If elected, he says he will only serve one term — unless, of course, people beg him to stay.
“When I told my mom, she tried to get me to come run in St. Catharines,” says Sweeney, who made an 11th-hour decision to enter the race.
“I was amazed at the number of people who are unhappy with their representation.”
Sweeney is a single, 33-year-old software developer and has been an Ottawa resident for six years. This is his first time running for political office.
He has served two years on the board for his apartment building, and is a member of the Ottawa Carleton Ultimate Association, an ultimate frisbee league.
In spite of his lack of political experience, Sweeney insists he is up to the job.
“Municipal politics is supposed to be the level that anyone and everyone can get involved. You need people who can make decisions based on what’s best for the city and not for their political career,” says Sweeney.
Sweeney says pushing for more accountability and making council more financially responsible are his main goals.
He says the council should “stop throwing money away through frivolous lawsuits, defaulted contracts, penalty clauses and mismanagement of public funds.”
Issues like making Ottawa officially bilingual, he says, are unnecessary and should be reviewed by the city.
Sweeney says he wants to put resources into improving transportation downtown. He has a plan to modify traffic-light sequencing that will speed up gridlock traffic by more efficiently advancing cars.
He says Ottawa could also improve its transit system by running more buses downtown and creating more park-and-ride facilities. To do this, he says the city needs to create a more densely populated downtown core by encouraging more development within city boundaries.
Along with creating more green space downtown, Sweeney says he’d like the city to be more environmentally conscious. He says he would like to slowly phase in a two-bag curbside garbage limit, reducing the limit from six bags.
“The city is growing and we need to deal with (waste management) now. I don’t think anyone wants to see Ottawa become a mini-Toronto,” says Sweeney.
Sweeney is also passionate about motivating people to recycle properly. He says he would like to push council in that direction and get everyone thinking about these issues.