Mark Wehner
Background, public record, forum positions and unanswered questions for Mark Wehner, a 2026 Armstrong councillor candidate.
Office: Councillor
Mark Wehner was elected in 2022 and comes to council with experience in information technology, finance and firefighting.
His financial record is comparatively easy to document because he has moved or seconded several motions.
At the April 7, 2025 meeting, Wehner seconded motions adjusting the property-tax distribution and endorsing the tax rates presented by staff.
He also seconded Valstar’s transfers into road, drainage and sewer reserves.
Those motions were recorded as carried, with no negative vote attributed to Wehner.
On April 22, Wehner moved the motion giving the 2025 annual tax-rate bylaw its first three readings.
Todd seconded it.
The motion was recorded as CARRIED, with no negative vote identified.
The forum made Wehner’s fiscal philosophy clearer.
He said reducing taxes ultimately means reducing services somewhere.
He argued against cutting infrastructure reserves, comparing them to retirement savings: put money away gradually rather than leave the entire bill to whoever happens to be living here when something fails.
He also raised municipal debt as a tool for spreading major infrastructure costs across the generations that will use it.
And he offered perhaps the sharpest line of the tax discussion:
“Planning for grants isn’t planning.”
His point was that Armstrong cannot assume another government will rescue it from infrastructure costs when they arrive.
Previous public office: Armstrong councillor, 2022-present.
Record summary: Budget, tax, reserve and long-term infrastructure work.
What the minutes show: Wehner has directly moved or seconded several significant financial motions, with no negative vote attributed to him on the examples reviewed here.
From the forum: Defended infrastructure reserves and strategic borrowing rather than promising tax reductions without corresponding service cuts.
Another way to look at it: Spending now can avoid larger costs later. That does not mean every proposed infrastructure expenditure is automatically justified.
What I’d like to know: If council had been required to reduce the 2025 tax increase further, what would Wehner have delayed or cut?