Julia McPherson, District 4, Cole [email protected]
Born in New Brunswick, MacPherson grew up in Lawrencetown, and graduated in 1997 from Cole Harbour High. She's educated, with NSCC certificates in Small Business Management and a diploma in Construction Administration Technology. She's a project coordinator for Salter's Construction Management, and lives in Cole Harbour with her nine-year-old daughter. She's worked on school boards, and was chairperson of the school advisory council at Colonel John Stuart elementary.
MacPherson is looking for more money for transit. Cole Harbour's bus service ends past Ashgrove Avenue, and other major roads are unserviced. Add to this that bus service ends at 6:30pm, she says, and you have a community dependent on vehicles. This "hurts efforts towards environmental sustainability," she says. She also advocates a daily bus pass for $4, which would allow transit users to make stops without paying again, and tourists to see the city on the cheap.She supports a green procurement policy---everything new built by the city must be environmentally sound. She's not looking for a "green wash"---an unenforced set of rules, she says, but LEED certification-style rules that are enforced. She also wants to increase downtown's population, which she says will "decrease Halifax's carbon footprint," and admits that Cole Harbour is "feeling the effects of an outward sprawl." A community centre is also on her list, with youth events---which she says will keep crime low---but at the top of the list is transit.
