Robyn Goldsmith
About Robyn

General local election, City of Revelstoke · Saturday, October 17, 2026

Running for Revelstoke City Council.

Revelstoke has already done the hard work of deciding what it wants to be. I’m running to make sure council follows through, with a clear eye on climate, community wellbeing, and securing a viable future for our infrastructure.

The platformGet involved
Portrait of Robyn Goldsmith

Why I’m running

We’re not short on vision. We’re short on follow-through.

I’ve spent a decade in this town writing plans, managing budgets, and sitting in rooms where people who want very different things have to arrive at one decision.

Revelstoke is not short on vision. We are short on follow-through. Plan after plan has been researched, consulted on, and adopted, and then left on a shelf. I want to audit our community’s vision by looking at the work we’ve done, and create meaningful advances towards that vision through strategic decision making.

I’m also a lawyer by training, with an emphasis on land and resource management, and I’ve run the destination management planning process for this community. I know how to read a bylaw, a budget, and a consultant’s report, and how to tell when one of them isn’t saying much.

Platform

Three things I’ll push for at the table.

Moss-covered boulders and old-growth cedars flanking a creek in a steep rainforest ravine
01

Follow the plans we have already made

Use the City of Revelstoke’s existing plans to guide us.

This community has invested years of staff time, consultant fees, and volunteer effort into creating an Official Community Plan, strategic plans, and strategies. Those documents represent real consultation with real residents. They should be the starting point for council decisions and adopted as guides to understand the community’s vision.

That means measuring proposals against what has already been adopted, being honest in public when we are departing from a plan and why, and updating plans deliberately rather than quietly shelving them.

A lone backcountry skier skinning across a snowfield below a broad, sunlit peak
02

Fix what we have before we build what’s next

Invest in aging infrastructure before undertaking new major projects.

New projects come with ribbon-cuttings. Repairing aging infrastructure is less exciting. But deferred maintenance is a debt that compounds, and we are seeing the real impacts of neglecting aging infrastructure through our issues with sewage treatment, aging bridges, and the state of the Revelstoke Forum.

I want capital planning that funds renewal of the systems we already own first, with the condition of those assets and the cost of waiting laid out plainly in public before council commits to anything new and large.

It’s also time to lobby the Province for greater support for Resort Municipalities. Our infrastructure bears the weight of our tourism economy, and that burden shouldn’t fall on municipal taxpayers. Revelstoke is not alone in facing these types of challenges, and by joining forces with other Resort Municipalities, we can make a strong case to the Province for a greater share of the economic benefits of tourism.

Layered mountain ridges fading into summer haze above a lake
03

Take climate change seriously

Climate change is already affecting our residents and our core economic sectors, tourism among them.

Wildfire smoke, snowpack, and heat are not abstractions here. They shape whether people can breathe on an August afternoon, whether people can recreate outdoors, and whether the sectors that employ this town have a season at all.

Council should be weighing climate risk in the same breath as cost when it makes decisions about land use, infrastructure, and emergency preparedness. Our future as a community is inextricably linked to the environmental future of our region and our planet.

Experience

What I bring to the table.

The programs and plans behind this are set out in more detail under selected projects.

01

Budgets at municipal scale

Experienced in budget oversight for events and organizations, and has built and managed budgets, including grant funding and procurement.

02

Planning, done here

Led the destination management planning project for the community of Revelstoke (the consultation, the budgeting, and the procurement) and has facilitated community workshops and strategic planning sessions with local stakeholders.

03

Legal and land-use literacy

Juris Doctor from UBC with an emphasis on land and resource management, and four years practising law in Revelstoke.

04

Governance experience

Develops and implements strategy with a Board of Directors, serves as Vice Chair of the Revelstoke Visual Arts Centre, and has served with many other non-profits in and outside of Revelstoke including the Revelstoke Cycling Association, Ascent Mentorships, the Revelstoke Community Foundation, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and the Compassionate Eye Foundation.

Get involved

Tell me what you’re seeing.

If any of this sounds like the council you want, I would genuinely like to hear from you, including if you disagree with me.

Prefer email? Write to robyn.goldsmith (at) gmail.com.