Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Paula Radwan Of Taste Of Egypt
This article is part of series of profiles of entrepreneurs who’ve been elected to city councils in New Brunswick.
SAINT JOHN — Paula Radwan was watching results pour in at home with her parents and her husband when she learned she was one of two newly elected city councillors for Saint John’s Ward 4.
For the last nine years, Radwan said she was among a few citizens who regularly attended city council meetings before the pandemic. But now that she’s in the chamber, she has a “very strong vision” of what the city should look like in the next 10 years.
“I feel extremely overwhelmed because I have so many ideas written down, with motions that I want to put forth and policies that I want to change,” said Radwan.
One of Radwan’s main focuses is tax reform, which she said is a huge game-changer for Saint John and isn’t anything new. She also has several growth initiatives that she’d like to bring forward to her fellow councillors.
Radwan also wants to bring new businesses to Saint John by compiling tools and resources entrepreneurs would need into one place. Some would include grant applications and listings for companies that offer plumbing, finances, or real estate services.
“If you bring new business, it brings more people and helps grow your population. It helps for the economy because there’ll be more jobs here,” she said. “It trickles into investors coming because as you start to see economic booms, then more developers want to come in.”
The resources would then allow the business mentors who manage the database to contact local companies and ask if they’d be interested in opening more locations around the city or other parts of the province.
It’s all to eliminate any barriers new or experienced entrepreneurs may face. Radwan said Ignite Fredericton used a similar idea as a project five years ago. She’s seen a lot of growth in that city and that it sent a strong message that Fredericton was “open for business.”
“You’re actually going after businesses and you’re letting people know that we’re open for business here, so I want to do the same thing for Saint John,” said Radwan.
As co-owner of Taste of Egypt with her husband, Ehab, one of her strengths is balancing a budget and “looking for money.” With her experience in finances and human resources, Radwan often looks at ideas for grant money and ways to restructure expenses to save money.
“For me, it’s nothing to go through a budget sheet and ask a lot of questions about it,” said Radwan. “I think after a while, you really start to evolve, especially when you’re sitting in the council chamber for nine years, you end up doing a lot of critical thinking.”
Because of the recount in Ward 4, Radwan and her ward colleague, Greg Stewart, had to wait until June 14 to be sworn in. Still, her 15-year goal of sitting on council has now come true, and she’s looking forward to joining the three other newly elected councillors who are also small business people.
“I think they’re really valuable citizens and I’m really pleased with who’s going to be sitting around the table,” said Radwan.
More in this series:
- Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Brent Harris Of The Tool Library
- Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Joanna Killen Of Slocum & Ferris
- Meet Your New Saint John City Councillor: Greg Stewart Of AJ’s Lounge
Aaron Sousa is a summer intern for Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].