Doyle eager to serve, communicate with community

It was a close call, but Colin Doyle will sit on Portage la Prairie City Council for the next four years.

1464 Portagers cast a ballot for Doyle, 35 votes more than the 7th place finisher, Garry Sloik. Doyle says it was a long night, as they waited for results to come in.

Doyle credits his wife, Colley-Ann, for helping him along the way, as well as his two biggest supporters, Jake Matheson and Darren Spence, who helped him with his campaign. Doyle thanks his family, his friends, and the people of Portage for allowing him this chance to serve his community.

Over the past few months, Doyle would attend city council meetings as a citizen. He notes he felt is was necessary to know the process in the hopes he would be elected in October.

"I just looked at it as, 'This is where I want to be. I better get in there and see how it operates.' I get some sort of sense of comfort as to where I'm going, what I'm doing, how the meetings are run," says Doyle. "There are certain traditions that are used on council and at the table. I just thought it was important to have a bit of a heads-up as to what those were. There were things over the last three to four council meetings that were not decided with the current council."

If elected, he knows these would be issues he would have on his plate during future meetings and he wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Doyle has wanted this for a long time. During the 2018 municipal election, he had wanted to run, but it wasn't the right time. This time around, it was perfect, and he was eager to throw his hat into the ring as soon as possible.

"June 30th was the day you can sign up and June 30th happens to be my birthday," says Doyle. "I marched down to City Hall on my birthday, I got the application package and I went through the motions. As soon as I was able to, I got some graphics made up and some signs printed. I think being the first one out there, pounding the pavement and getting the signs out, really put my name in people's heads."

He says a lot of people have reached out to him to have conversations -- sometimes very difficult conversations -- and that's something he wants to continue over the next four years.  He looks forward to joining several committees and continuing to pound the pavement talking to the people of Portage.