Meet mayoral candidate Silverado Socrates as she sits down to answer some important questions and a just for fun question, before the election on Oct.15.
Silverado Socrates
(The following has been transcribed from video: sic)
If elected, what would you like council to accomplish over the next four years?
So big city problems are happening in large part to locals being put to pasture, stabled and stifled, or forced to move. There is a lack of a sense of belonging. The biggest drug out there is greed. I could talk so much about that and examples I’ve seen it’s so sad.
I’m a believer in sharing, in fact, I’m sharing the place I’m living with a couple of people I only met last week. They just need a place of belonging, a place to get themselves sorted. One was living out of his car, one was getting run out by the bylaws. I was like ‘what do you doing’ he’s 65. So I think that answers that first question is what council can do. I’m excited to make some positive change.
As mayor, how would you like to see council and staff manage future growth and development in the city?
I talked to a person who was telling me that their landlord was gonna give them three months notice, if and when they started development, they had bought the place from someone else for purposes of developing. They suggested the obvious idea of potentially having one of the suites if you will at least give them an option of maybe having one of those rooms. I thought that was a great idea. In fact, the same developers they owned across the street would have been easy, you know. But they already rented them out and she looked into it and they were all from out of town with people. So it’s like we are kicking out our locals and giving them no place and no sense of belonging as we attract strangers. I think that’s kind of sad. We have to look after our locals and honour our pioneers and locals.
According to Statistics Canada, in 2021 Kelowna had the worst crime rate of any census metropolitan area (per 100,000 residents) in Canada. If elected, what could you and council do to address crime?
I do believe we need to invest more in peace than police, but we can work with the police to help them be more peaceful. Community service workers are overworked, the problem increases, and stress increases. I used to think of the RCMP as top-class. I’ve observed, heard, and read examples of them more on the other end of that. I imagine stress has a lot to do with it. You see the images, seems cool when they get energized but it’s not cool to hurt anybody, let alone the innocent. They’re not killing anybody, they’re not committing crimes. A lot of times when you hear these examples, I’ve seen things. So, restorative justice programs and possibly a program where police get grounded as they lead children on horses rather than ride. I’m a firm believer of stable communities are healthy ones, pun intended there. I know Kara Triance (Kelowna RCMP Superintendent), I knew her when she was in grade seven or eight and she used to ride with me. I’d love to talk to her about this and show people that she was once a child, show the person behind that police officer and help them see the person behind whatever’s going on in their world that they’re trying to deal with.
Who is your favourite Okanagan celebrity and why?
I’ve heard Lindsay Wagner is living here. I’ve never seen her but she’s a hero of mine as a child. Some of you know she was the Bionic Woman, I’m dating myself a little bit but she was pretty cool back then. In the show, she had been a professional tennis player and had some head injuries, so I can relate to some of those things having been a former track athlete and many head injuries. The other one is Mandy, he was such a smart horse. He’d go up to the fence jump over, graze in the orchard come back, and make me open the gate for him to have dinner. So smart.