Mark Schjerning

Sep 25, 2014

Councillor

Mark Schjerning – Paramedic chief and Beaver leader

Mark Schjerning has lived on Sydenham Lake for over 18 years with his wife Kim Deline. They have two school-aged children, a boy and a girl, and the whole family is involved in Scouts and Girl Guides with Beavers and Brownies.

Schjerning is also a hockey volunteer and is the president of the Sydenham Lake Association.

His day job is as the Chief of Emergency Services for Lennox and Addington County, a job he has held since 2010. Before that he worked as an operations manager for the Hastings County Paramedic services, and before that he was a paramedic based at Hotel Dieu hospital in Kingston.

In addition to his experience as a manager in a municipal context, he has also served on the Police Services Board in South Frontenac for four years, and like some of the other candidates in Loughborough District, part of his motivation for running this time around is the fact there are two vacancies on council.

He has identified three issues as a focus for his campaign. They are: policing costs, transportation (roads and bridges) and asset management.

As far as roads are concerned he feels the level of service is good within the township, but there is an issue of communications and there are gaps.

“Every resident is entitled to know the standards for the road they live on, and these standards should be regularly updated,” he said.

He has also looked at the Long Lake Road situation, which has been raised during the campaign. Noting that the road is township property, and those who live on the eastern portion of the road receive what the township calls “minimal maintenance”, meaning they have to plow themselves out in winter and do not have the benefit of home garbage pickup, he said, “As far as I can tell, they are entitled to a certain level of maintenance based on provincial regulation since it is a township road,” he said, “I think a bit of organization and formalization would help everyone.”

He said that if elected he will use his understanding of the way municipalities should work to take on the responsibility of council.