If anyone thinks Dave Stockdale should step away from city council and give someone else at chance, the 69-year-old veteran councillor hasn't heard about it.

"I think if people thought I'd been here too long, I would have heard it on my fifth run, or my sixth,” the retired school teacher and father of three says of running for a 10th term on Oct. 15. "I've heard no such thing.”

And Stockdale's interest for the job hasn't waned.

"Election time always gets the juices flowing and gets you focused,” he says.

After 26 years on council, Stockdale doesn't have burning issues to pursue so much as ongoing projects he wants to see continue.

Should Stockdale be re-elected, he says he hopes to help steward the continuing development of the waterfront, a process he thinks will pick up once investors start recovering from the recent economic slump.

The construction of the Kwanlin Dun First Nation cultural centre at the foot of Black Street will be a major boon for the city, he says.

"We are always asking people to stay an extra day in Whitehorse, and there you are, we have something more for them on that extra day,” he says of the building. It will house the city's library, along with space for artists, conferences and cultural gatherings.

"Eventually, it will be a fantastic waterfront,” Stockdale says.

Keeping on the path toward a greener, healthier Whitehorse is another focus for Stockdale.

He says he believes in the sustainability plans described in the city's Strategic Sustainability Plan.

The plan, developed in 2007, "charts our course towards sustainability over the next 15 years,” according to the city website.

He noted, however, that people who want to see an expanded transit system may not get their wish.

"We've directed our transit department to look at ways to improve the system ... but it's a very expensive operation. When we asked citizens what they would pay for transit, very few people are willing to spend more.”

And more pouring more cash into buses may not bring the improvement people are looking for, he says.

"For a city of this size, we have an excellent system .... It's hard for me to think that doing a lot more than what we're doing right now is going to make much of difference.”

On the other side of the transportation coin are those who want more parking and vehicle accessibility downtown, he points out.

"So if we try to force people onto transit by making it harder to drive downtown, business owners complain that we are driving their customers to the big box stores.

"If we offer more parking near downtown businesses, people say we are building a car-dependent city .... You try to come up with the best balance possible.”