Sylvan Lake Mayor Sean McIntyre ready to 'pass the torch,' will not seek re-election

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When Sylvan Lake Mayor Sean McIntyre spots a group of tourists struggling with a selfie timer in front of the five-foot-tall letters spelling out the town's name, he jumps in to take a photo for the group. 

After all, he is known for being Sylvan Lake's first social media-savvy mayor. 

But this fall, Sylvan Lake will have a new mayor as McIntyre announced this week he will not run again.

After two terms as mayor and a term as a town councillor, the 37-year-old father of two is ready to step away from municipal politics. 

"We feel like it's time to pass the torch. For me, it's been 11 years as an elected official. My kids, who now are 10 and 13, have known me as nothing but an elected official," McIntyre said. 

Chief's Pub and Eatery owner Rob Mackenzie can't believe McIntyre won't be mayor of Sylvan Lake after the municipal election in October.  

"He truly made a difference," said Mackenzie, who has been running Chief's for 21 years. "He brought in more tourism, the new hockey rink, new facilities, new playgrounds — lots of stuff for kids and adults." 

At the Sylvan Lake Barber Shop, hairstylist Brandy Reid hopes the next mayor will build on McIntyre's legacy.

She believes McIntyre "stepped into a real mess" when he took the mayor's office in 2013, at a time when Sylvan Lake was struggling with high water levels and low morale after the town's historic lighthouse was demolished.

"He stepped in and he did a good job," said Reid. "He was someone we could relate to, because he was young." 

McIntyre's relative young age wasn't out of place in a town where 54 per cent of the population is under the age of 35. 

Shelby Lifton has lived in Sylvan Lake for three years and describes McIntyre as "quite active on social media." Lifton hopes that trend continues with Sylvan Lake's next mayor. 

"You learn who they are and what they stand for in the community," she said. 

As a health-care worker, Lifton said she was glad to see the Sylvan Lake Ambulatory Care Centre open in 2018 while McIntyre was mayor.

McIntyre says he just built upon the work of his mayoral predecessor, Susan Samson, who spent years pushing for an urgent care facility for the community.

"We all worked really hard together to lobby the province for what we now call our advanced ambulatory care service," said McIntyre. "There was that changing of the guard and everybody continued to push really hard for that service." 

Another project McIntyre is proud of is how Sylvan Lake became the Kraft Hockeyville winnerin 2014.

When the roof of Sylvan Lake's arena collapse that year it "was a terrible tragedy for our community," said McIntyre, but the community "came together and pushed in the same direction and we were able to win this nationwide contest and we were named Kraft Hockeyville."

That win gave Sylvan Lake $100,000 for arena upgrades and eventually led to the opening of the NexSource Centre, a multiplex with ice rinks, pools, and an indoor track in 2017. 

No potential successors have declared themselves yet as mayoral candidates, but McIntyre hopes the community supports the next mayor as much as it has supported him. 

"It's important that whoever comes forward next has a heart for Sylvan Lake and has integrity and the ability to build bridges," said McIntyre.