Brad Gruszie says he's "Medicine Hat, through and through," as he vies for a seat on city council.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
Brad Gruszie hopes to earn a seat as ‘your councillor’ in the upcoming municipal election.
Gruszie, born and raised here, says he and his family are “Medicine Hat, through and through.”
Gruszie says he is best known through his satellite business, where he and his coworkers installed about 10,000 dishes in a five-year period.
“I am a little bit of an outside-of-the-box thinker, even when I was doing satellite I was doing things that they said couldn’t be done,” said Gruszie.
Gruszie went to work for the city building police cars in 2006, where he stayed on for a year while continuing to manage his satellite business. Afterwards, he went back to satellite installation but would later return to building police cars.
“I started building the police cars again in 2011 and they actually saw a lot of value in me because I started doing two-way radios in 1985 and that was really my expertise.”
Gruszie also spent 10 years working in traffic and was influential in changing light procedures, which he says greatly diminished accidents.
Transparency and inclusion form the main components of Gruszie’s platform.
“Being that I did work for the city, there’s a lot of things that do happen behind closed doors, so I would like more transparency,” said Gruszie. “The only thing that should be talked about behind closed doors is personnel issues.”
Gruszie would like the city to implement a contingency fund or maintenance budget and save money overall.
“My signs say ‘Brad Grusize: Your Councillor. I want to work for you,” said Gruszie. “I did it when I was an employee of the City of Medicine Hat, I loved doing that … I was not scared to go against management, which means I will not be scared to ask questions that need to be asked to get the proper resolution to anything that comes up.”
“I’m very passionate regardless of what I do, I give 100%. That’s just the way I am.”
