Donald Teuma-Castelletti
CLARENDON Oct. 18, 2017
A new contender has put his name forward in the running for mayor of Clarendon and he is certain to put up a fight.
Gerald Dagg is running in the municipal elections and he’s bringing a whole host of experience to build his platform on, but his main concern right now is snow removal.
“Number one to start work on is snow removal on roads,” said Dagg. “This year’s snow is going to have to be looked after right away.”
Dagg believes the snow removal work has become worse year-upon-year and that change has to happen now for a successful, safe winter.

“It’s not up to par, not done on time, and people miss work because the road isn’t plowed,” he said. “Sometimes school buses can’t even get through and people can’t even get up the road to feed their animals.”
As for how he wants to change it, well Dagg has some strict timelines for plows.
“There has to be a pass at every road at seven o’clock in the morning,” said Dagg.
“That means that people have to be out there working at three o’clock, not at nine o’clock in the morning,” he continued.
After all, everyone depends on clear roads for their daily routine.
“You can have a major storm and miss work once a year or so because of the snow,” he said. “There’s lots of people that work, that don’t get sick days, and if they don’t do their day’s work, they don’t get paid. If they miss too many, well maybe somebody else will have their job.”
This may be Dagg’s first run at the mayoral office in Clarendon, but it’s certainly not his first experience in office.
“I was mayor of Rapides des Joachims for eight years and I sat on the MRC for eight years, so that should qualify me good enough,” said Dagg.
This position threw many challenges his way, but nothing the rest of the Pontiac didn’t have to deal with, too. Under his leadership, the municipality developed a disaster relief plan for the school, including equipping it with propane generators and other appliances. Through this, he added, they could look after the whole village if there were an emergency.
He hopes to bring this kind of leadership not only to Clarendon, but back into the MRC Pontiac.
“When we sit at the MRC, we sit for the Pontiac, not ourselves,” said Dagg.
“We have to work as a group to make the Pontiac the best place we can make it.”