Mayor Plumtree ready to roll

Vauxhall has a new mayor — Margaret Plumtree, who has been busy learning the ropes, since being selected by fellow councillors at an organizational meeting of the Town of Vauxhall council on Nov. 4.

“I’ve gone to a couple of training seminars, so that’s really helped a lot and of course we’ve got our Municipal Government Act reading book,” said Plumtree, of what council has been up to since taking municipal office only a few weeks ago.

“It’s been a lot to learn but it’s coming along,” she joked.

Plumtree said the reason she put her name in for a shot at the mayorship in the first place was because, after talking to others, she found out some of the other councillors didn’t necessarily have the time to dedicate to such a high profile position.

“There’s a lot more meetings and committees that you have to go to, and then being available for all the events around town,” she added.

Originally, Plumtree was only going to put her name into the hat as a councillor.

But after thinking about it and talking it over with family for a few weeks prior to the municipal election Oct. 21, she decided to give it a go, and according to Plumtree, so far so good.

Previously, Plumtree lived in Coaldale for over 15 years before deciding to move to Vauxhall, where she has resided for the past two years with her husband, who is a teacher.

“We thought it was a better place to raise our kids and so far that’s been true,” said Plumtree.

Even though Vauxhall town council is new and has only been a collective for a few weeks, councillors have been hard at work, not only learning the new job but taking care of town business.

“We have a lot of things that are ongoing but we got right to business right away. There’s not a lot of time for learning unfortunately. We’ve got to fit that in whenever we can,” said Plumtree, adding the big issues currently being discussed by council are infrastructure and the Vauxhall recreation complex.

“A big thing is the downtown and the arena and pool. For us, that seems to be the big thing on our agenda and a lot of ongoing stuff from the past council that’s still in the works, so we have that as well on our plate.”

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