Ann Baird
facebook.com/HighlandsAnn
Are you associated with or running as part of a slate? If so, which one?
NO
Do you live in the municipality where you are running, and if so, for how long? If not, what is your connection to that community?
Yes 17 years
What is your occupation, and for how long?
Farm+nursery owner (17), bookkeeper (30), biologist (32)
Tell us about your previous elected and/or community experience.
8 years on council (2014-2022)
Volunteer built the cob community bathroom
4 years on various council task forces prior to being elected to council
4 years as Treasurer with the Highlands Stewardship Foundation
Many volunteer presentations and tours given to community members
Co-owner/builder of the internationally recognized Eco-Sense home in the Highlands
Why are you running? What’s your motivation?
I’m running again to continue my work on protecting our beloved Highlands from threats including large-scale over development, extreme weather events/fire, risks of ground water depletion/contamination, and rapid regional growth. I believe that the land use planning and decisions we make now will greatly impact current and future Highlanders. Highlands can continue to demonstrate economic sustainability with low taxation if we look after our natural capital…our water, our wastes, and our forests.
With a rapidly changing climate, inflation, global insecurity, and all the local impacts, there is much we can do at the local government level to build Highlands’ resilience.
What are your top three issues?
Protect shared Natural Assets like water and vegetation. We all depend on abundant, clean water. We must protect trees and vegetation to enable infiltration of rain to aquifers and to manage stormwater flows so that roads, bridges, and culverts are better protected.
Increase Road Safety and build trails where feasible to enable shared and separate use by motorists, pedestrians, bicycles, and wildlife.
Protect the Parks from impactful recreational use and damage. I continue to advocate for part of our recreation budget to be redirected to roadside trails and local park management.
What’s your vision for your community in 25 years?
We are a financially sustainable rural community full of many diverse people where neighbours and families feel safe to go for walks on our roads and trails. Many Highlanders work from home and most use EV’s and eBikes for trips to town. The community has a thriving local market with garden produce, foods, crafts, and many useful items as well as skills are sold, shared, and traded. We take pride in our quality of water, our abundant nature, our seclusion, our parks, and our homes. We raise our families here, we have fun here, we grow old here. The Highlands is our home.
What’s one “big idea” you have for your community?
We don’t need growth to be economically or ecologically sustainable. Part of the reason that Highlands was ranked the NUMBER 1 financially sustainable municipality in British Columbia (by CFIB in 2018) is that our forests and soil provide for some of our municipal infrastructure including water, septic fields, and storm water management. The more we grow our community with conventional industry and housing, the more we negatively impact the forests and soil, and the more we will need to build manufactured infrastructure to do what nature does for us. If we look after Highlands, Highlands will look after us.
