Stan Tosses Hat In The Ring

Recognising the need to offer citizens a choice when it involves filling North Bay’s top spot, former Mayor Stan Lawlor jumped head long into the race for the Mayor’s chair.

“The last straw I guess that breaks the camel’s back in a place like this, is that I really felt their should be a campaign,” states Lawlor, who has had a 12-year hiatus from municipal politics.

“I felt that to have a situation were there was no mayoralty candidate would lead to an absence of voter turn out, to apathy, and I really felt that if that occurred we would not have an enthusiastic response this coming election.”

Lawlor made his candidacy announcement in the company of several notable residents including Rod and Lynn Johnston, at the Windmill Café on Main Street.

Lawlor told the onlookers that now is a pivotable time for the city as the council put in place will be for four years, and people should have a choice when charting the future.

“There is no token effort here. I believe that this concept of working together, building bridges, of having a team, of building moral at city hall, of working together with other levels of government,” he explains.

“Of bringing community groups and volunteer groups together and working with them. I believe all of these things are critical and frankly I’ve seen some weaknesses in all of those areas that have evolved over the past three years.”

Lawlor said he doesn’t feel the support he has garnered in making the decision to run could be viewed as an ‘Anybody but Vic’ campaign. The soon to be retired university professor said there are issues and outlined the two key issues that help shape his platform.

“The first top issue obviously is to rebuild that moral and to build those bridges. And the issue of taxes is a critical one and we want to get three or four projects rolling and fast.”

“One of them is the Waterfront development project, the other one is the hospital project, the four laning is well underway but that is an issue as well.”

Lawlor stressed the importance of rebuilding relationships and moving forward to teamwork.

“We don’t have the teamwork, we don’t have everybody pulling together in the same direction and to many projects are obviously in my view being delayed and not carried on fast enough.”

“I think we can do it a lot faster by building those bridges,” he states.