A first time City Council candidate in Lacombe says he's always been interested in politics, and despite having a young family, feels he's up for the challenge and will naturally bring some of the interests of the younger demographic to the table.

At the age of 35, Jonathan Jacobson is the youngest candidate in the running, but he still brings plenty of experience with him, both politically and professionally.

“I had the good fortune 7 years ago to be the Campaign Manager for Peter Bouwsema in his initial run for City Council.  That was a very easy campaign because Peter was known by everybody so I basically sat along for the ride and learned about some stuff.  Then 4 years ago I was fortunate enough to be Steve Christie’s Campaign Manager and that was a real lesson in politics at the municipal level”.

Jacobson has also served on the Lacombe Police Commission, and spent 2 years as Chair; professionally he has a decade of custom home building experience and is a real estate developer.

He plans to run a campaign on big picture thinking, saying he's noticed many politicians lack that long term vision.

“I think sometimes there’s a tendency to get stuck in whatever election cycle you are in, so your vision is only for the next 3-5 years, or maybe at most what you anticipate the lifespan of your political career to be.  But if you look at many of the most successful governments in the world, they are making policies and they are affecting changes that are not necessarily going to have fruition in the next 2 years, they are looking 25, 50, even 100 years down the road”.

With that big picture mentality in mind, and many of his competitors campaigning on economic development, Jacobson says he’s very aware of government's role in development, and there isn't a lot government can do to stimulate growth, but there's a lot they can do to stifle it.

“The best metaphor I can give you is that if we imagined Lacombe to be a garden and our vision long term is we want this to be the most beautiful garden in the world, we want everyone to come here, the government’s role is not to plant the seeds or anything like that, the government’s role is to make the soil as fertile as possible.  So, if I’m a family or if I’m a business and I want to plant my seeds here, I’m going to look for the most fertile place to put them down, so I’m going to make sure there is no weeds, I’m going to make sure there are no rocks, no obstacles that kind of thing and that’s what the government’s role is to do”.

Jacobson says he has a number of policy proposals which he will release over the course of his campaign to make that soil in Lacombe as fertile as possible.

He’s called Lacombe home since 2005, but has spent time in this community since 1997 attending Parkview Adventist Academy and graduated from Canadian University College, now known as Burman University, in 2004.