Council candidate optimistic about the business of building community

By Tim Kalinowski on July 6, 2021.

Local realtor Ryan Wolfe says optimism and a willingness to work together on problems will help Lethbridge continue to prosper as a city. Herald photo by Tim Kalinowski

LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com

Council candidate Ryan Wolfe says he is optimistic about Lethbridge, and believes there are no problems within the city that can’t be overcome as long as people of good heart are willing to come together to work on them.
“As soon as we show we have something that can work, Lethbridge will back it,” he says. “Lethbridge business will back it. We have precedents for that. The Lethbridge Soup Kitchen is privately funded. The first food bank in this city was started by a successful businessman who saw a need. These types of altruistic tendencies are alive and well in our city, and if we can get back to business of supporting businesses and families the rest will come along.”
Wolfe says a very simple philosophy underlies his quest to represent the citizens of Lethbridge on city council.
“This election is about getting back to business,” he says. “Back to the business of helping people, families and businesses succeed. To the extent we facilitate that, the other problems– the solution will come.”
Wolfe says he comes into the election with no particular axe to grind, no specific capital project he wishes to endorse, and no set point of view when it comes to addressing the city’s challenging social issues.
“I just think what people of Lethbridge want, and what has universally been communicated to me, is that they want to continue to see a safe community,” he says. “They want to continue to see businesses that can prosper, and they can invest in Lethbridge, hire people who like to stay in Lethbridge, who make Lethbridge a great community to live in.
“People have legitimate beefs,” he acknowledges. “No mother should ever have to deal with a child who has been injured by a needle at a playground. That is something that shakes people in a community. Those are things we want to find solutions for.”
But how does one find those solutions? Wolfe says through working together to create opportunities for everyone in the community.
“If we give a man a fish he eats for a day,” he explains. “If we teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime. In the City of Lethbridge we have such a phenomenal community we are amazing at giving a man a fish to eat for a day. I have volunteered at the soup kitchen. I am familiar with Streets Alive. I know what these folks do with what they are given, primarily from private sources, and it’s unbelievable and it’s successful. That being said, how do we transition as much as we can to identify folks that we can teach to fish, and have them go and be self-sufficient? And that is where I think this next municipal government will have a challenge, and will have opportunities.”
Wolfe, a successful local realtor and father of two, has lived in the city for about a year after moving to Lethbridge from Coaldale. He has run a real estate business in Lethbridge for the past 12 years. His wife Heather is a school teacher and they formerly ran a parented group home for teenage boys with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. It is this experience Wolfe credits as the source of his optimism, and his certainty that no problem is insurmountable.
“You have to celebrate your miracles,” he says. “This is a great community with a lot of good things. We need to find these examples and magnify them. That is a great addiction: the addiction of helping people and seeing people helped and successful will breed other people who want to do it.”
Wolfe, who is also a strong supporter of city council’s reconciliation efforts, says he is looking forward to speaking with voters about finding solutions to the challenges facing Lethbridge.
“I am prepared to learn, to listen and to lead,” he says. “That’s why I wanted to come in early, because I am going to meet a lot of very smart people.”

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