Local business owner announces candidacy for mayor of Victoria in the upcoming municipal election.
Gary Beyer is the co-owner of Tesseract computers, and has lived in Victoria on and off for 50 years. He said one thing he’s noticed is the city is trying to expand too fast.
“We’re trying to grow too big, and we shouldn’t,” Beyer said. “We have issues that need dealing with, we have housing issues that aren’t being addressed properly, we have homeless issues that aren’t being addressed properly, we have cycling issues that are hindering the growth of the city.
“Frankly we have fiscal decisions, we have bad decision making programs at city hall that are costing us a lot of money, that are ruining businesses, that are ruining city hall, that are frankly taxing our home owners to death.”
Beyer said he decided to run for mayor when he noticed the anger in the city.
“I’ve never seen people so angry,” Beyer said. “We’re got people angry with city hall, we’ve got people angry at businesses, we’ve got cyclists angry at motorists, buses angry at cyclists, pedestrians are angry. I’m seeing people shout at each other. A lot of this can be directly attributed to decisions made by city hall in how the city is being run.”
When asked why he chose to run for mayor, rather than for a councillor position, Beyer said, “visions are made generally at the top.
“Somebody has to stand up for people.”
The municipal elections will take place Oct. 20, 2018.