Ana Pateman describes herself as an advocate for social justice who is looking to improve things for the residents of Dubbo.
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Ms Pateman is running in East Ward in the upcoming Dubbo Regional Council elections.
The mother-of-three grew up in Dubbo. She held several teaching positions across the state before she returned to the city to take on the head teaching position at Dubbo College Delroy Campus.
Ms Pateman now runs Western Student Connections, where she has worked for the past seven years.
“Even before the amalgamation I had decided I would stand but the elections were put off until now. So here I am, ready to serve,” she said.
Having grown up in Dubbo, Ms Pateman said she had seen how the city had changed over the years.
Council needed to focus more on social justice and the people of the electorate, she said.
“Certainly the infrastructure is important, but at the end of the day we’re in office to represent the residents of our community and I think that the council needs to do more, to be more proactive and work with the non-government agencies in the towns, work with the government agencies like Family and Community Services, and come up with some initiatives that are going to help our young people and our elderly,” Ms Pateman said.
“A lot of our crime I think is due to not having enough for our young people, not being proactive and being a group and handling the situation properly.”
Ms Pateman said introducing more initiatives for young people would make the communities of Dubbo and Wellington safer, while attracting more cultural and sporting activities to the region would boost the economy.
The Western Student Connections CEO is one of only two people in East Ward who is not in a group.
“I am very concerned about the grouping situation I think that the Dubbo residents and the Wellington residents need to be very careful about how they vote and they consider what the impact will be if they vote for a group,” Ms Pateman said.
The Dubbo Regional Council elections will be held on September 9.
“I’m really looking forward to the challenge. It’s a different thing for me to out myself out there in the public space. I’m certainly ready to take on the challenge of representing the residents of East Dubbo and the wider community,” Ms Pateman said.