Editor's note: BarrieToday is running profile stories on candidates for city council in each of the city's 10 wards. For more election coverage, visit our 2022 municipal election page by clicking here, where you can also find mayoral profiles and other election news.
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Tif Arshi felt the time was right to step up and give it a try in the upcoming Barrie city election on Oct. 24.
Arshi, who has lived in Barrie’s Ward 2 for 30 years, told BarrieToday he was running in the 2022 municipal election because he believes change is needed and things are not getting done.
“I am running for many reasons — first is better safety in school zones like speed cameras. My neighbour almost got hit the other day and that's when I said it's time for someone that can get things done,” Arshi said. “The speeding has gotten worse since all these delivery companies have started and it's only getting worse, but the cameras will be my first priority.”
The 40-year-old also had some thoughts on the city's downtown, an area that makes up a large portion of Ward 2.
“Downtown has been taken from our tax-paying citizens. I took my family out at night the other day and it was like a ghost town," he said. "People are scared to go downtown because of drug addicts and people with mental illness. I can fix this by moving the planned safe injection site to the outskirts of Barrie along with outdoor showers and washrooms, and offering drug interventions at the safe injection site.”
Arshi believes that by moving the supervised consumption site (SCS), which has been proposed for 11 Innisfil St., to the outskirts of the city "we can remove the panhandlers and drunks from downtown to outside of Barrie.”
“They can get help out there and we can get the police to push the tent cities out there and stop the thefts to our businesses and allow our regular townspeople back to enjoy what we moved to Barrie for in the first place the beauty of the lake and surrounding nature,” he added.
There has been no correlation reported, however, between thefts from businesses and people living in alternative shelters.
Arshi also says road repair is a major issue. He believes the city has spent money on other things and left the roads in bad condition.
He told BarrieToday he has a bachelor of arts degree in economics from York University and says his “out-of-the-box thinking and his business background skills will surely help advance issues and find the cheapest solutions to save our tax dollars allowing us to put it into our roads.”
Also running in Ward 2 are Craig Nixon, Shanicka Edwards and Bob Ossowski.
Nominations close Friday, Aug. 19 at 2 p.m. for the city election, which will elect the next mayor, 10 city councillors and school board trustees.
For more information, visit barrie.ca.
