Windsor candidates weigh in on biggest challenge facing town
Amalgamation or some form of municipal reform is on the minds of many candidates vying for Windsor town council.
The Valley Journal-Advertiser hosted its Windsor Candidate Forum on Sept. 28 at the Royal Canadian Legion.
Approximately 125 citizens listened to all 10 candidates for council discuss issues.
Much of the forum is available via our Facebook page through Facebook Live video broadcasts.
Below are partial responses to our first question: What do you see as the biggest challenge facing the Town of Windsor and how do you propose it be overcome?
Mayoral candidates Anna Allen
“That’s the very question I’ve asked every one of you. I’ve written everything down, and amalgamation is No. 1 in this community. That’s what people are talking about, that’s what people want to move forward. They also said they’d like to have more information. The only way to get more information is to get that darn study done that’s sitting in front of the URB, and until we get that paid for by the right people to get it done then we’ll have the facts and information and we’ll all be informed. I commit that everybody will be informed because that will be our communication plan for the town. We need to know the facts about amalgamation and the impacts.”
Scott Geddes
“The largest challenge we have in the Town of Windsor, moving forward, is our tax rate. It is hurting the town immensely. It is scaring business away from coming and developing in our community. It is putting a barrier up for our seniors to sell their homes to younger people. We just need to move forward with it. There are all kinds of things we can do. I believe we need to bring an outside consultant in to look at where we can cost save within our own community. Amalgamation will solve a lot of these problems, but we also have to be prepared that if it does not happen, we’ll have to make some hard decisions ourselves.”
Council candidates Jackie Benedict
“I believe we do need to make a lot of changes in our town and people are afraid of change. The biggest thing is getting along with our neighbours and I have one quick solution to that is to vote new people into council and get some fresh blood and maybe some of these people will get along. Fresh blood, fresh ideas and I’m certainly not afraid to make hard decisions.”
Shelley Bibby
“I think we have several big challenges and for me it’s quite difficult to pick one as the biggest one... I’m actually going to say that I think the biggest challenge in Windsor is a fear of change and I think it starts at the top and works its way down to the citizens. Sometimes you’ve gotta make tough decisions and you won’t be popular for them. People are often scared to take that step, to change to something you’re not familiar with and that to me is the biggest challenge we have. I don’t know how to change it but I think that calls it what it is.”
Dan Boyd
“Getting along with our neighbours…has not happened in the last few years and I’m not sure it’s going to happen after the election. We can only hope it will. It would be great if we could work and function together. In the meantime, we’re talking about tough decisions and I was on council between 1994 and 2000 and we talked about the community centre at the time. It’s the Hants County War Memorial Community Centre and it’s costing taxpayers of Windsor approximately $150,000 a year – 15 cents on your tax rate, that is just going up in smoke. You’re paying on it, but I don’t know how many of you are actually using the community centre every year… Taxes are the biggest issue facing Windsor and we have to do something.”
John Bregante
“We need to reduce taxes, we need to attract new businesses to the community. Commercial business, because the commercial tax rate is higher, but of course we also have to be able to work with neighbouring communities. We work well with Wolfville, Kentville, Chester… because we have agreements in place with those communities. But when it comes to working with our neighbours that are closest to us we struggle. It’s the biggest struggle of all because they don’t want to even come to the table…We are going to have to make some very tough choices in the not-to-distant future if the URB rules that amalgamation will not go ahead. It may even mean reducing the
See Candidates, A27