Red Pheasant Cree Nation has a new chief and council following the elections on March 18.
Cody Benson was elected as chief. He is the son of Lux Benson, the former acting chief, who was re-elected as councillor in this election.
The other councillors elected are: Leroy Nicotine, Shawn Nicotine, and incumbents Mandy Cuthand, Dana Falcon, Henry Gardipy, Sam Wuttunee, and Shawn Wuttunee.
Cody Benson won with 745 votes, defeating fellow candidates Donna Angus who garnered 393 votes, and Nola Wuttunee who picked up 24 votes. Andrea (Fay) Nicotine withdrew from the vote.
Cody Benson says he brings a “wealth of experience within the band.”
He previously served as band manager for the past seven years.
“It feels good to be here and start working on some of the projects,” Benson said.
Looking ahead, he wants to continue with urban development, among his plans.
“That’s a huge [project] for us,” he said of the urban reserve in North Battleford. “We have some great tenants who are going to be coming in. We plan to keep going from there, and keep bringing more and more [initiatives] to North Battleford, so we can have a better community for everybody.”
Benson also plans to offer more employment for Red Pheasant members.
“We always want to create more work for our people,” he said. “We want to continue growing. We’ve come a long way from where we started out. We want to make sure our members are having the same opportunities as everybody else. We want to create [jobs] for the younger generation.”
Economic development is also in the plans ahead.
“We have that store [Centex Gas Bar] in North Battleford so far,” Benson said, adding that plans are to continue to develop the urban reserve area.
The First Nation also has a farm of about 6,000 acres. “We want to keep growing with that also,” Benson said. “It’s going to be good for us.”
The new chief also wants to bring community policing to Red Pheasant, to make the community safer.
“We’re following up with that in the next little while. Bringing community policing to the community is going to be good for us,” he said. “We want to combat the drugs: We’re having an epidemic of crystal meth, and all the bad drugs that are in the community. We’ve had some overdoses in the last little while… We’ve had some tragic [incidents] happen… The community policing is going to help us be more proactive, and be able to deal with [issues] in a more timely manner for our people. That’s huge for us. We are going to keep pushing, so we can get some money to get that in place.”
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angela.brown@pattisonmedia.com
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