Former director of education seeking election to M.L. city council

A retired educator, administrator, and director of education is seeking a seat to Meadow Lake’s city council in October.

First moving to Meadow Lake in 1990, Glen Winkler was a teacher turned principal at Carpenter High School. Later in his career, Winkler served as the director of education for the Meadow Lake School Division and retired as director of the Northwest School Division (NWSD) a few years ago.

Having a direct hand in drawing blueprints for Carpenter and the NWSD office, assisting in the school division’s $55 million budget and managing over 800 staff are experiences Winkler feels will help him get elected on Oct. 26.

He said the challenges city council faces and the school board face are similar.

“I think it’s given me a lot of experience to deal with the sort of challenges the city faces,” Winkler said.

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While there are goals Winkler has if elected, he wants to gain an understanding of the budget before making them public.

“I think the people of Meadow Lake would look for someone who has a vision for the future and I’ve always done that in my career so taking a look at the direction Meadow Lake should go would be one priority and aligning our resources to meet those goals would be another,” Winkler said.

Winkler is extremely involved in the sporting community. Whether that be as a coach, player, official or event organizer, he said he enjoys seeing children thrive and have fun in sport.

In 2012, he served as co-chair of the organizing committee for the Saskatchewan Summer Games and helped grow minor baseball in the city by serving as president for the association.

Now retired, Winkler said he wants to help provide direction for city council if elected.

“Now that I’m away from the demanding job of director of education, I’m ready to go back and see if I can’t help the city grow and get some direction,” he said.

Winkler is also seeking election to be a school board trustee with the NWSD.

Seven candidates including Winkler are vying for six council positions. Incumbents Conrad Read, Curtis Paylor, Kim Chiverton, Merlin Seymour, and newcomers Tom Harrison and Richard Levesque are seeking election.

Mayor Gary Vidal was acclaimed following the Sept. 21 deadline.

Voters cast their ballots on Oct. 26 at the Civic Centre.

Mail in ballots are accepted and advanced polls are being held at city hall. 

Colton Swiderski is meadowlakeNOW’s municipal affairs, crime and court, health and education reporter. He can be reached at cswiderski@jpbg.ca or tweet him @coltonswiderski.