After building a successful business over the last quarter-century, Ron Swizdaryk, a long-time Whitehorse resident, says it's time to give back to the community.

"I think I can put my work experience to work on city council,” Swizdaryk says of what he brings to the table. "And I do have time now, and I'm not nearly as busy as I used to be.”

Building his transportation business, Norline Coaches, was a huge commitment in both time and resources, but Swizdaryk believes lessons learned on the job will bode well when managing the public purse.

"You can't spend more than you've got, and you've got to look ahead to see where the best place is to put the money,” he says. "Whether you put it into a new bus or renovate the bus you have ... you do your best to balance your budget.”

Swizdaryk realizes that Yukon municipalities are legislated to balance their budgets, "but there's better ways to do a budget.”

Focusing on controlling taxes, which have increased for eight consecutive years, encouraging more people to live downtown and improving public transit form the basis of Swizdaryk's platform.

"If you keep the high density (living) downtown, then your infrastructure is a lot less, so you can keep things like taxes down,” he says.

"Times have changed and some want to see us grow grow, grow ... and there's a huge cost to maintain when the population is spread out all over. You put another 500 houses here and there, and all of a sudden you need a huge infrastructure to feed those houses.”

"If you keep the urban population downtown, it creates less strain on our transit system and then we don't lose our greenbelts, paths and ski hills,” he adds. "But let's do it right and try and keep a lot of the old Whitehorse, the old town, keep the facades and decor the way they are.”

As a former board member of the Mountain View Golf and Country Club and Yukon Transportation Museum, Swizdaryk is no stranger to working with others to achieve a common goal.

"When (the museum) refurbished the DC-3 weathervane, that was quite a feat in having it done and put together,” he recalls. "That's something to be proud of, and I helped a little bit there.”

Like many who call the Yukon home, Swizdaryk came for a visit and decided to put down roots.

"I was married here, my children were born here and they grew up here,” he says of what ties him to the community, a place he's very proud of calling home.

"We have anything here that any metropolis has, an arts centre that's second to none, a recreation facility that's second to none, an unbelievable amount of musical and artistic talent that lives here ... it's a great place to live.”