The men and women who will be leading the city for the next four years were sworn in before a full house in the North Bay Council Chambers Saturday morning.
The newly elected council has five returning city councillors, four newcomers, and one returning after being defeated in the previous election.
“I’m excited by this new council. I really like it. I like the vibe. I like how engaged they are and how much they want to get to work. And I love the fact that they all believe in growing the city. They recognize that if we don’t, the financial burden on our existing citizens is only going to get higher, and higher,” said Mayor Al McDonald following the swearing-in ceremony.
“We want to send a signal to the country that North Bay is open for business, that the city wants investment, and it wants to attract people to the community. So, we swore in this council at the first possible minute which was Saturday morning, to send that signal that we are welcoming of all citizens moving to North Bay, and welcoming investment.”
That same message of growth has been sent to city staff.
“We’re going to work with our staff to break down the barriers to the red tape, to the policies that we have in place, to make it easier for people to invest in our community. We want strategies on how we can attract individuals to our city, because we do know that our birth rate is 1.6, and our death rate is 2.1, so we need to welcome newcomers and people to our community if we want to grow our population.”
The mayor says there are benchmarks to work off for growth.
“One is our assessment roll. We’re going to measure that against our policies to determine how much we can grow the city each and every year,” said McDonald.
“Secondly, we know where our building numbers are, so that is going to be our baseline and we want to see the building numbers go up. And thirdly, we have to wait for the census to come in from the federal government, but that’s where our benchmark is, our population today and where it is going to be in the next four years. So those are the criteria’s that we’re going to measure ourselves against.”
McDonald says it is going to take the entire community working together to make a difference. Meetings have already been held with investors, developers, the Chamber of Commerce, business and community leaders, the Labour Market group, and Invest North Bay.
“Invest North Bay is going to lay out their mandate in January. I can tell you, we’ve been working with all the business and community organizations, and they’ve all said to me that we need to grow, and they’ve all said they’re willing to be that partner to give us their support and leadership.”
McDonald wants big changes over the next decade.
“My goal is to see the city of North Bay go up by 10,000 in 10 years. So I would like our population to be 62,000. I want to see our numbers grow 5 to 10 percent a year on the building stat numbers. And we need to increase the assessment rolls, and that target is still to be determined by council. But those are the three good measurements that we can determine as a council, from a community perspective, how we’re being measured by the strategies that we put in place.”
Deputy Mayor Tanya Vrebosch is now chair of the General Government committee, councillor Mike Anthony is chair of Engineering and Public Works, and newcomer Johanne Brosseau is chair of Community Services.
The first thing Brosseau wants to address is Summer in the Park, which lost just over $247,000 last summer.
“I want to get the public and groups involved in idea sharing, of what should happen this summer. I’m open to any ideas. We also have to make a location decision on the twin pad arena. Give me a few months and I will tell you what number three is,” laughed Brousseau.
She was asked how she felt after she was officially sworn in.
“I feel great. I feel honoured and proud to be a citizen in North Bay. I woke up relaxed, no nerves until I saw my mom with tears in her eyes. So that kind of choked me up a little bit, but I refocused before I sat in my chair.”
It was new city councillor Bill Vrebosch who put forward the motion making daughter Tanya Vrebosch deputy mayor.
The Deputy Mayor has set a visionary meeting for December 10.
