ThoroldToday will be profiling every candidate in the upcoming municipal and school board elections on Oct. 24. Up next: Current city councillor Ken Sentance.
53-year-old Ken Sentance is concluding his first term as a Thorold City Councillor.
He hopes to get re-elected so he can continue making sure that Thorold residents get plenty of bang for their buck.
“I’ve always said: ‘You’re going to pay taxes but it’s what you get for them,’” says Sentance, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “I want to keep getting positive amenities and services for the city if I can—just keep all the positive things that need to be done moving in the right direction.”
Sentance, who works in the water treatment plant at the Thorold Multimodal Hub, first ran for city council back in 2018.
“I wanted to be a part of doing something positive for the City of Thorold,” Sentance says. “You sit around and you talk about it and I thought: ‘Well, maybe I’m old enough and this is my time to go in.’”
His first term as city councillor had few challenges, according to Sentance.
“I never imagined doing this in a global pandemic,” he says. “That was a surprise but other than that the challenges weren’t that big. I just liked the successes that we had. I’m a big fan of the Summer Games, our operations centre, the fire hall. The challenges were the pandemic and the pluses were everything else we were able to get done during that.”
If re-elected there are many projects Sentance would like the city to tackle next.
“There’s streets and infrastructure that needs to be done,” Sentance says. “Broderick Avenue, Bolton Avenue, and St David’s [Rd] needs to be completed. We need traffic calming in Allanburg and we need to build the [South Main St] bridge in Port Robinson. We need to hire more people so we have enough people out there that can service people from by-law complaints to anything street cleaning.”
Another task on Sentance’s agenda is affordable housing, as well as further developing the city’s mental health efforts through Pathstone. He also wants the city to keep creating jobs.
“More jobs, good paying jobs in the City of Thorold but I think that has started with Norgen and the Multimodal Hub,” he says.
Sentance is a lifelong resident of Thorold and he has much love for the city.
“I joke with my friends that Thorold is the Garden of Eden,” Sentance says. “Sports, community, going out your door you know everybody. I love living here.”
Contributing to the local community has always been important for Sentance. He has coached hockey and baseball for over 30 years.
“I’ve always been involved with the community in a sports form,” he says. “When I decided to become a councillor I joined a lot of committees so I’m on the TCAG board, I’m on the affordable housing board, those are the places I wanted to make a difference to."
Sentance says that being a councillor for the past four years has been a really rewarding experience.
“When you’re younger you don’t pay attention and you just have all these things you take for granted,” he says. “You don’t realize how many hours and how much work and how many meetings have to happen to get these things done. It’s extremely gratifying to see when something comes to fruition.”
At the end of the day, Sentance just wants to make his community a better place.
“I have nothing but Thorold’s best interests in mind,” he says. “I will try and get more and more for the City of Thorold when it comes to services and amenities and try to make an already great city better.”
