A couple years ago, Council and administration, with community/public input created a long list of priorities. Council then rated the list of priorities and the top 15 were chosen to tackle in the last two years of this term.

This is work that is in addition to Staff’s tasks of running the town. Some of them were completed relatively quickly, some required budget approval first and others have been ongoing and are nearing completion. I personally thought 15 in two years was ambitious given the scope of some of the items, but none-the-less it provided an Action Plan for our CAO and Staff to focus on. Some of the less time-consuming, lower rated, priorities have also been completed.

It is important to note, many more priorities were on the list (the whole list is in the link above), such as waterfront development, but Council did not rate them as high as these top 15 priorities. There have also been other issues come up along the way that were not necessarily anticipated at the time the list was created, causing delays or pauses in the Action Plan.

You can watch the Special Council Meetings that were held on February 24, 2021. and March 3, 2021.

The newly elected Council will go through the process again and create a new set of priorities, and/or re-rate existing identified priorities and establish a new Action Plan for Staff for the next four year term.

My hope is that, despite it being an election year, Staff are permitted to continue to focus on the work they were tasked with by this Council. Especially with the considerable time, effort and resources that have already been allocated. In my opinion, these identified priorities need to maintain their priority status through to their completion, or at the least, through to the end of this Council’s term.