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Familiar foes to battle for mayor’s chair in Penhold

Jun 20, 2017 | 5:00 AM

The race for the mayor’s seat is heating up in Penhold.

Incumbent Dennis Cooper, who’s served on town council since 1995, is running for re-election, he says.

“Basically, I’ve been mayor for seven years and been working towards listening to our citizens and addressing their concerns and their problems,” says Cooper. “Our town has moved forward a lot. We’ve gone over 3,000 people, we’ve lowered taxes, we’re working on water issues. There are a lot of things happening in our small little community — we just signed an IDP [for the first time] with Red Deer County.”

Cooper adds the Town will soon be annexing nine quarters of land, something he’d like to see through.

His lone competitor at this point is first-term Town Councillor Mike Yargeau.

Yargeau and Cooper say there’s nothing personal between them and in fact their families have been friends for quite some time. Cooper mentions knowing Mike since he was little.

Yargeau, who’s been involved in politics since he was 16, serving most recently as Kerry Towle’s campaign manager in 2015, says he wants to keep more young families in town.

“We have one of the lowest average ages — around 32-years-old — and we’re also one of the fastest growing communities in central Alberta. But we don’t yet have a lot of the spaces that those young families are looking for,” he says.

“People move here from Red Deer, but they’re still going into Red Deer to do their stuff. We’re working on that already with our development around the multiplex, getting some more ball diamonds, more soccer fields and walking paths.”

On why he wants the big chair, the 31-year-old adds, “Dennis has been a good mayor. It’s just a matter of I think I can do the job and I think it’s time for me to do the job.”

Municipal elections across Alberta are happening on October 16.