The election was four months ago and it has been a bustling time of orientation, training, special meetings and more.

We have major change at the Council table with a new mayor, deputy mayor and two new council members.

Although I posted messages of gratitude and thanks on social media, I’ll repeat here THANK YOU. Thank you to the many folks that came forward with offerings of help during my campaign. I was overwhelmed by the quantity of people that wanted to assist. A special thank you to Brenda Gagnier who kept everyone organized, Sarah Sacheli who provided her ear and expert writing advice, to my husband Dean and daughters Lauren and Morgan who spent many hours putting up signs, to the dozens who helped deliver my message door-to-door, to the hundreds who showed their support by displaying an election sign and to the thousands who took the time to vote and who put their faith in me to represent. I promise to work hard on your behalf.

Our New Council

I’m looking forward to working with this new team. New voices ready and willing to make desired and necessary changes. To continue putting what is important to Kingsvillians first: our small town charm, our rural character and the well being of our residents.

Short term:

We recently held a mini-strategic priority setting session to give administration direction for this first year of the term. Three key priorities were identified: 1) Facilities Review 2) Attainable Housing 3) Main St. Development Review Wrap-up.

Facilities review was a motion I made last February, seconded by Councillor Patterson. It was identified as a top priority for 2023.

For me, this inquiry began my first year on Council. The Grovedale had been completed and admin wanted funding for a marketing campaign. I asked for ‘use’ data from our existing buildings and none could be provided.

Then Covid happened and all use essentially stopped.

The need to have our facilities reviewed became even more obvious because it was clear we were lacking in some spaces (a gym) while having an abundance of other spaces (meeting rooms). To add, admin highlighted our lack of reserves to keep our buildings in good shape. This year alone we have over a million dollars to replace the surface of the arena – that’s not improvement, just replacement. Furnaces and other repairs are needed at several buildings. Some buildings sit mostly empty, it seems.

The facilities review’s scope includes several buildings: town hall, arena, Cottam school, Ridgeview Hall, Unico, OPP station, Carnegie, Kingsville library, Ruthven library, Lion’s Hall, fire halls, Grovedale, pavilion and public works buildings. I’m probably missing some.

In order to plan for our future we NEED to know their state of repair, necessary investments to bring them to required standards, current use ratio etc. We also need to decide what our USE GOAL is – do we want community groups to have easy access, do we want buildings to generate revenue?

We need this data before we discuss plans for the school properties.

We also approved our 2023 budget that included additional staff and much needed savings towards our infrastructure deficit and plans to purchase the school properties. Major capital projects for 2023 include:

• Completion of Road 2 E (Graham to Division)
• $2.8 million in road resurfacing projects
• Replacement of Road 11 Bridge over Patterson Drain
• Engineering and design of Westside Collector Road
• New arena floor cooling system and board replacement
• Phase 3 of Lion’s Park with accessible playground
• Paving of the parking lot at Mettawas Park
• Paved walking trail at Ridgeview Park
• Completion of new Dog Park & Baseball Diamond upgrades

Long term:

We will be completing an in-depth, long term strategic plan this fall. Stay tuned for more on that!