The name ‘Darrell Trouton’ will not be on the ballot for mayor in November’s municipal election.
Sicamous’ incumbent mayor announced Monday that he will not be seeking re-election, opting to focus on personal projects and family.
Trouton told the News this decision resulted from reflection with family, including his wife Jeannette, about his current volume of commitments, noting “you can only take on so much for so long, then you need to downsize, regroup, get grounded, before taking on projects again.”
“Jeannette and I are at the stage in our lives where our kids are on their own now – We are downsizing our home, simplifying our lives and will be able to spend more time with our family.”
Trouton describes himself as a focused and dedicated person who never took the role of mayor lightly, treating it as a full-time commitment.
Reflecting on his time as mayor, Trouton says his greatest challenge and accomplishment resulted from the flooding of 2012 that put the District of Sicamous into a state of emergency.
“Taking on a new role and having to deal with everything, that would be it – dealing with the flood, the fact that nobody was seriously injured and trying to make a positive out of something that most definitely wasn’t a positive.”
Trouton says he’s proud of how council and staff have come together in terms of working with, and respecting one another, and he’s enthusiastic with the direction they are moving in. This includes the work being done on what is currently the biggest undertaking in the district, development of the new water treatment facility.
“Before you move forward with a project, you need to do the work first, and we’ve done that work. We’ve got a really good team, we’ve looked at all the aspects of it, we have a project management team hired to do that for us… we have the right people looking after it,” said Trouton. “Would I have liked to have had one more year, complete a few more things? Sure. Of course, that’s the downside. There’s always a downside.”
Asked if the new four-year term the next mayor and council will be facing was a factor in his decision to not run again, Trouton said no, though he would have liked to have had four years this term. He said there are lots of projects, beyond the water treatment facility that he would like to continue working on, such as the Sicamous -to-Armstrong rail trail, various highway upgrades including the Trans-Canada/Highway 97A intersection and the dredging of the channel. He noted one of things he tried to do as mayor was make each of these projects front and centre before the right people in the provincial and federal governments.
To the upcoming candidates for mayor and council, Trouton says experience in business, especially as a business leader, is crucial.
“You’re the business leaders, basically, for the community,” said Trouton. “You have professional staff, but they also rely on you to give them direction as a council for the community. We need business leaders to step up and help out for the direction of the community, and I don’t think there’s enough of that.
“It needs to be run as a business, it needs to be accountable, you need to be held fiscally responsible, and you have to take all the information in before you make decisions on moving forward. In any business, that’s what you need to do.”
Trouton is grateful for all the support he’s received over the past three years, and is appreciative of the opportunity, the people he’s met and experiences he’s had. He says he will make himself available to upcoming candidates for mayor or council to discuss all that he can with them about the work ahead.
“There’s definitely positives to it and it’s a good experience,” he said.