Experience
Matters
These platform points are a direct result of 40 years as a journalist, city committee member, and member of Owen Sound City Council 2014-2022. I have lived in downtown Owen Sound for 36 years, and have observed first hand the many persistent issues business people, residents and community groups across the city are trying to deal with. If elected mayor, this will be my top priority.
Strong Mayor
Powers
As mayor, I will delegate my strong mayor powers back to City Council. I have no interest in acting unilaterally or altering the democratic process. The entire council is elected to manage the cities affairs, and the entire council should be involved in the decision making.
1
Community First
Issues continue within the River District and across the city. I am making this my top priority. I will work collaboratively with volunteer organizations and social services to find creative solutions to the persistent concerns in the downtown and across Owen Sound.
2
Communication and Engagement
As a communications specialist, I know the importance of being in touch with the community. I will work to improve communications at City Hall by establishing an "Ask the Mayor" portal, to give citizens an easy way to ask questions about the business of council. Additionally, I will continually be looking for opportunities to improve community engagement. The workings of the city should not be a mystery to anyone--we are all impacted by the decisions made at city hall.
3
Fiscal Responsibility
I will adopt an open budgeting process, including budget day presentations to council. I will adopt the resulting document and present it to council for approval as the mayor’s budget.
4
Housing Affordability
Bring local developers and non-profits (Habitat fro Humanity, Owen Sound Housing Company, Lutheran Social Services, Grey County etc.) together to explore opportunities for partnerships with the goal to create affordable rental housing.
5
Taxation
We need to continue finding creative ways to enhance our tax base, such as the development charge holiday that I advocated for when I was first elected to council in 2014. Council agreed with the goal to stimulate development, increasing the overall assessment base to lessen the tax burden for everyone.
In 2022, I championed the Municipal Accommodation Tax. This 4% tax collected on all short-term rentals is now generating close to half a million dollars annually in revenue for the city and also provides granting opportunities for tourism events.
I support the service review process undertaken in 2022, though I believe it could have been done internally, which would increased its overall savings. It is only through constantly examining and revisiting what we do and how we do it that we can improve. One of the main priorities of the mayor and council is to ensure that all monies are spent wisely and council is held to be fiscally responsible.
6
Economic Development/Tourism
Tourism and economic development are two sides of the same coin; both are aimed at bringing money and people into our community. I see the benefit in creating a strong new department combining and refocussing both functions.
Tourism is growing, and it’s time we step up our efforts in attracting people to Owen Sound.
Economic development was moved to Grey County some years ago, and I think it’s time we bring it back into the city to focus on the economic growth of Owen Sound. I support the work done by the past council on clean energy frontier, and see potential to grow in areas of health care, advanced manufacturing and marine innovation.
7
Emergency Services
I will work closely with the Police Services Board and Police Chief to find efficiencies, without sacrificing service. We can’t hold the service to blame for costs that are driven up by provincial mandates; they have no choice but to implement them, often without additional funding from the province. Recently, council has asked that the city investigate an OPP costing study. Since 2024, OPP costs to small municipalities have risen 10-25%. The Owen Sound Police Service budget increased 5.4% in 2025, and 5.5% in 2026.
I believe Owen Sound would be best served by either a composite fire service, or a larger regional service. A strong firefighters union and a broken provincial arbitration system will make change difficult, but in the long term it is the best move for the taxpayers of Owen Sound.
8
Municipal Infrastructure
Owen Sound has a lot of infrastructure, which puts huge demands on the annual capital budget. We must maintain our roads and sewers, but if we think strategically, we might be able to make some positive changes. We have more than 70 city owned buildings, many in need of serious repair. Rather than being a drain on resources, we need a different approach that would see revenue generated by leasing these spaces or converting them to purpose-built facilities that we could lease.
9
Transit
When you own a car, an expensive transit service doesn’t seem all that important. Not everyone has their own transportation and I believe transit is essential for Owen Sound in the long term. However, maybe we can do it differently. When I was on council I advocated for a different and more cost-effective approach, similar in nature to Innisfil’s partnership with UBER: the municipality provides a $10 per ride subsidy within its borders. I’m convinced we could establish a service like this in Owen Sound, providing 24/7 door to door service.
10
Health Care
I support pursuing the idea of creating a municipally run clinic for family doctors, who would be municipal employees. This emerging new model in primary care built, built on direct employment by the city, could be the best way to bring new family physicians here. By removing the financial and administrative burdens involved in running a medical practise we may be able to attract doctors who want to focus on medicine rather than administration.
11
Waterfront
The waterfront is our primary asset. It’s been almost 10 years since the city met with Transport Canada to discuss the future of the waterfront. I support starting the process again, to see whether we can find a fiscally responsible way to transform the waterfront and harbour into something we can be proud of.
12
Regionalization of Services
I support working with our neighbours towards sharing some services, but not at the expense of Owen Sound taxpayers. Any sharing of services must be equitable and make sense for Owen Sound.
