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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Robert Thomson isn’t taking his second term on Barrie city council for granted.
Although acclaimed in Ward 5 for the Oct. 24 municipal election — he ran unopposed — Thomson says he’s honoured to represent his constituents for another four years, from 2022 to 2026.
“My family and I have lived in Ward 5 for 20 years,” he said. “Ward 5 is my home, it’s where I have raised my family and we feel incredibly lucky to live in such a great community.
“It is with this in mind (that) I will focus to make it an even stronger community over the next four years.”
Thomson is known around the city council table as a councillor who gets things done, and he says he plans to take the same approach during his next term of office.
“I like to work with others toward delivering tangible results,” he said. “My strong work ethic, team leadership skills and understanding of how city hall’s plans actually hit the road allow me to work with and lead around the council table.
“Each and every day, I will focus city hall’s resources on front-line services where Barrie’s residents will be able to see their tax dollars at work fixing our ailing roads, keeping the community safe and protecting pedestrians and drivers alike.”
Ward 5 faces the same challenges as the rest of Barrie, such as development pressures, traffic increases and speeding, safety for residents, etc.
“In the next four years, I would like to see these things completed in Ward 5 — walkability and being connected to the rest of the city with the completion of sidewalks. Expanding on traffic-calming measures and increasing community policing to keep our neighbourhood safe.”
On his website, Thomson says he recognizes that road safety is important to residents and that council has taken steps to improve conditions in Ward 5.
This includes installing speed humps in front of two major parks, a new advance green traffic signal at Ferndale and Edgehill drives, allowing families to enter the subdivision there more safely, and in better time, placing no-parking signs in targeted areas that were creating hazards on the roads, such as Shakespeare Crescent and Jagges Drive, and adding a new, three-way stop at Sproul and Miller drives. New traffic-calming measures are also coming to Edgehill Drive.
Thomson and Ward 7 Coun. Gary Harvey are the only members of the 2018-22 Barrie city council acclaimed for the 2022-26 term of office.
For more information on Barrie’s municipal election, visit barrie.ca .
