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The
November 2006 Municipal Election Will Be All About Electing People
With Strong Leadership Skills
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Finally we will have someone from Valley East
sitting on Council who has proven leadership skills. Kirwan has
been a Teacher for all his life and he was President of his
Teachers' Union for nine years. He has shown many times in the
past that he is not all talk. When Kirwan says he is going to do
something, he does it. Robert Kirwan has my vote and I know he
has the votes of all of my friends and neighbours.
Submitted by Jim from Hanmer |
Robert Kirwan has my vote of confidence. I have
known him for a long time and one thing I can say is that he is
not afraid of stepping forward and taking responsibility. He
loves challenges and has the ability to find ways of achieving
his goals and objectives. I feel good knowing that he is going
to represent me on City Council. Now at least there may be some
direction to what they do at City Hall. Good Luck, Robert. We're
all behind you.
Submitted by Jennifer from Val Therese |
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The
November 2006 Municipal Election Will Be All About Electing People
With Strong Leadership Skills |
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| When it comes to casting your vote in the November 2006
Municipal Election, your choice will pretty much depend on one thing and
one thing only. Who do you feel among the candidates running
for office possesses the strongest
leadership skills and therefore, who do you feel is best equipped to do
the job of representing you at City Hall?
For example, anyone can make promises, but not everyone is capable of
delivering on those promises. Sometimes it requires a great deal of
strategic thinking and positioning in order to accomplish specific goals.
Let's take, for example, the issue of the Barrydowne Extension.
A large number of residents of Ward 6 - Hanmer & Val Therese, as
well as the residents of Val Caron, Blezard Valley, McCrea Heights and
Capreol also feel that a Barrydowne Extension highway would be beneficial
to the northern communities in the City of Greater Sudbury. It is easy for
a Councillor to stand behind this movement and demand that the rest of
Council approve such a major highway construction project.
However, a strong leader will look at the end goal and then work
backwards to see what has to be put in place in order to ensure the
Barrydowne Extension becomes a reality.
When you work from the 'End Goal' backwards, you see that in order to
be driving on a beautiful new four-lane highway linking Valley East to New
Sudbury, the following will have to exist:
 | We will need to increase our population by about 5000 people in
order to justify the construction of a new highway to accommodate the
additional traffic load on our existing Hwy. 69N route.
In other words, it doesn't matter how many signatures you get on a
petition, nor does it matter how passionate a plea you make for the
construction of the highway, the existing traffic on Hwy 69 North
heading into Sudbury is not high enough to warrant the spending of
money on a new highway at the other end of the community. There are
times of the day when the traffic is heavy, but that traffic load must
be consistent all day long in order to convince the federal and
provincial governments to help fund the Barrydowne Extension. |
In order to make the Barrydowne Extension highway a reality, the following will have to take place:
| We will need to have several senior apartment buildings and at least
one senior residential complex established in Valley East so that
seniors will be able to move out of their single family dwellings and
open up their houses for purchase by new families who cannot afford to
buy homes in the $300,000 range;
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| We will need to facilitate the construction of approximately 300 -
400 new houses EACH year for the next five years This is a lot
of construction, but if we assume an occupancy of 3 people per new
home, this is only 900 to 1200 people per year. This means that we
must ensure that there are permits for approximately 1500 to 2000 new
houses pre-approved through the planning department;
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| We will require many additional licensed day-care spaces for the young
families who will be anticipated to purchase these new homes. Without
adequate day-care spaces young families will not even consider
locating in this part of the region. The licensed day-care spaces are
needed in order for young families to receive subsidies to help pay
for this "necessity of life" for the 21st Century family;
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| We will need to increase the water & sewer infrastructure in
Ward 6 in order to meet the new standards for home construction. Right
now, the infrastructure is restricting new development in some of the
older areas of the community of Hanmer. There is abundant space for
development, but the cost is prohibitive at this point until we can
increase the size of the "pipes in the ground";
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| We will need to promote the Valley East Industrial Park in order to
bring new industry and jobs into the Valley East area. People like to
live close to where they work. The Valley East Industrial Park has a
lot of space available. As a council we should be encouraging
development in this Park because of its central proximity to all other
sectors of the City of Greater Sudbury;
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| We will need to promote the industrial development of the East side
of the City of Greater Sudbury in order to create more jobs in that
part of the City so that people will be able to use the Barrydowne
Extension to get to work. This will create a further demand for
housing in the Valley and will place added pressure upon Council to
approve the construction of the new highway;
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| We will need to convince the rest of City Council that the
Barrydowne Extension will eliminate the need for a Maley Drive
extension by virtually removing all traffic from Valley East from
Lasalle Blvd. If the Maley Drive Extension goes ahead as planned, it
will take over $32 million to complete. That will place a huge drain
on the road construction budget. The construction of the Barrydowne
Extension may accomplish the same goal at a fraction of the
cost.
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| We will need to enhance our neighbourhood playgrounds and major
recreational facilities in order to attract new residents to Valley
East. This is an absolute no-brainer. |
So, as you can clearly see, getting the Barrydowne Extension is not as
easy as simply trying to convince City Council to designate this project
as a top priority among road construction plans for the region. It will
require a whole new philosophy on the part of councillors with respect to where
residential development should be promoted, and thus requires a belief
that Valley East is the best place for this development.
In order to accomplish this big goal, all of the others must be done
first. That will take leadership and strategic planning.
When you cast your ballot on November 13, 2006, you will have to select
the person who you feel has the necessary skills to make all of the above
happen in order to accomplish your major objectives.
This applies to all major decisions that impact upon the residents of
Ward 6 - Hanmer & Val Therese. It is all a matter of leadership. That
is the question this time around. POOR LEADERSHIP LEADS TO POOR
DECISIONS Unfortunately, we can site too many examples of how
the 'Poor Leadership' qualities of the City Council in general has lead to
some pretty bad decisions during the past few years. Just recently for
example:
| Council has had a great deal of difficulty deciding on how to pay
for the rock tunnel project in the South End of the City. They have
reversed several decisions and it appears as if the rest of the
ratepayers will be paying for this project for the next 40 years;
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| Council approved a construction project of $6 million for the
Kingsway from Falconbridge Road to the By-Pass. Funding from the
Provincial and Federal Government was obtained in the amount of $4
million for that project (based upon the fact that all three levels of
government were to split the cost equally). Between the time of the
approval and the time Council was to approve the final expenditure,
the cost had risen to $8.4 million. In addition, staff decided to add
enhancements to the project effectively raising the total cost to $13
million. Instead of sending staff back to the drawing board to find a
way of completing the project on budget, Councillors approved the
increased expenditure, thus accepting responsibility for $9 million of
the cost of a project that was originally pegged at $6 million. To add
insult to injury, only $1.1 million was budgeted for 2006, so the
remainder will be paid for in the 2007 and 2008 budgets, meaning that
if Robert Kirwan is elected, almost $8 million has already been spent
out of the road budget for the next two years.
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| Council had to appoint a Community Solutions Team to survey the
residents of the outlying area in order to find out why they are so
dissatisfied with the current municipal government structure. With
seven members of the current council living in those outlying areas,
this was a blatant admission of poor leadership.
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| The list is endless. This is why I say that the
"Leadership" issue is the most important one for the 2006
elections. |
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