Priorities
Housing
Increase flexible housing options for workers, seniors and young families. Modernize zoning rules to accommodate options such as land-lease housing, mixed dwellings, accessory units and other innovative forms of housing. Make it easier for seniors to remain in the community and for local businesses to find housing for their workforce.
Transport
Explore practical ride-share and on-demand transportation options that connect Thornbury, Craigleith, Clarksburg and surrounding rural communities with Collingwood and other key destinations. Examine partnerships with existing transportation providers rather than automatically creating new municipal services.
Meetings
Reduce the length and cost of Council meetings. Cut unnecessary speech-making, repetitive questions, excessive public thanking and avoidable demands on staff time. Introduce a three-minute speaking guideline for individual Council interventions, while allowing additional time when an issue genuinely requires detailed discussion.
Council meetings should focus on making decisions, scrutinizing spending and providing direction—not unnecessarily extending meetings or consuming staff resources.
Cut consulting waste.
In 2025 nearly $2 million was spent on consultants and in 2026 we wasted $91,000 on a needless KPMG study (ironically a review of the $19.5 million overspend). I will press for a minimum 35% consulting spending cut in the first year.
Finance
Rebuild municipal reserves. Establish clear reserve targets and a multi-year plan to rebuild reserves and restore the Town’s financial flexibility.
Make financial information easier to understand. Provide concise reporting showing where tax dollars are going, how reserves are changing and whether major projects remain within approved budgets. Clearly disclose when reserves are being used to cover budget shortfalls.
Balance spending with revenues. Stop presenting budgets as balanced when they depend on reserve withdrawals. Recurring municipal costs should be supported by recurring revenues—not one-time revenues, reserve withdrawals or development-charge funds.
Correct growth and spending projections. Update assumptions developed during the COVID-era real-estate boom to reflect development activity and market conditions. Realistic forecasts will allow the Town to scale capital spending and infrastructure plans to revenues that can reasonably be expected.
Improve long-term capital planning. Prioritize maintaining and replacing existing infrastructure according to condition and necessity before committing to new projects.
Stress-test the budget. Show residents what happens if development-charge revenues, building activity, grants or other significant revenues fall below forecast. Major spending decisions should be affordable under realistic downside scenarios—not only the most optimistic projections.
Strengthen procurement discipline. Use competitive procurement wherever practical and require clear, public justification for significant sole-source or non-competitive contracts.
Publish a five-year reserve forecast. Show projected balances for major reserves, including planned contributions and withdrawals, so Council can see the long-term consequences of today's spending decisions.
Set measurable financial targets. Establish and publicly report indicators for reserve adequacy, debt, capital affordability, project overruns and budget variances. Residents should be able to measure Council's financial performance against clearly defined targets.
Life, family and community
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