Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin’s father used to tell her that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail.
This year, Innisfil town council has been working on projects to ensure that failure isn’t an option.
The bevy of master plans the town has finalized over the last 12 months, including the InnServices master servicing plan, and the stormwater and flood master plan, and the ones it continues to work on — such as the transit master plan — are among the highlights for the mayor from 2024.
She and her colleagues on council accomplished a “great deal” in 2024, she said.
“Some of it may be not as sexy, you know, (but) more fundamental work that is so imperative, and we need to get it right,” Dollin said earlier this month in an interview. “If you get the foundation right, then the building won’t collapse.”
That’s a literal goal as much as a figurative one. A facilities review has also been completed to determine the physical state of the municipality’s infrastructure and the lifespan of the pieces that make up the town’s capital inventory. A sustainability master plan was also completed, an important document in guiding the town in addressing climate change within the municipality.
The master plans, along with the strategic plan set out by the council in 2023, are the ultimate guides for the town. They are long-term documents that anticipate greater possibilities rather than immediate wins.
Such a mindset was on display in one of the mayor’s more tangible highlights for 2024: the groundbreaking of DSV Logistics in the Highway 400-Innisfil Beach Road corridor.
The sod turning, attended by Premier Doug Ford, was a “breakthrough of our employment lands,” Dollin said, an area envisioned for development for the 30 years Dollin has served on council.
Being patient and trusting the process can be hard, especially for newer councillors, Dollin said, but essential for development to come online properly.
“You come in and you just want everything done overnight and sometimes it’s really hard to understand that we’re setting ourselves up for a vibrant future,” the mayor said. “It’s not all about what we’re going to do in this council term, but we want the council years from now to look back and say, ‘wow, you know, that council 2022 to 2026, thank God they did this and did that.’”
It's something Dollin needs to remind herself as the town waits for word on the future of the south Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) campus, proposed for a parcel of land near the intersection of Innisfil Beach Road and Yonge Street.
Hospital builds are never quick, but when there’s the potential to improve health care in your community, the three years between when the project first came to council and now can seem like a lifetime.
Innisfil wants health care closer to home, Dollin said, and council continues to advocate for the RVH project to the provincial government. Earlier in December, the province announced more than $95 million for a new hospital in Collingwood, which gives the mayor optimism, as that process began slightly before Innisfil’s did.
The RVH south campus would go a long way to help make Innisfil a place, not a space.
“We’re actually one of the 50 largest municipalities in the province and we deserve the services,” Dollin said. “We’re expected to grow. We have signed our housing pledge. We’ve committed to grow, but we just can’t grow houses. People who move here want to have babies and (they might) break their arm. They want to go to school, and swimming lessons and skating lessons and they want a job.”
It's a reason why council has often veered out of its jurisdictional lane to bring the amenities residents want to the community. Dollin pointed to the Rizzardo Health and Wellness Centre as a good example. Council lobbied for improved health care access in the community, which led to more options available locally.
Now, Innisfil residents don’t have to travel for blood work or similar appointments. The nurse practitioner-led clinics opened in 2024, and the centre is at full capacity. Three thousand more people don’t have to travel as far as they might have otherwise to get medical attention.
Just as unfolding with the hospital, the nurse practitioner clinic didn’t arrive overnight, with the town applying at least three times for it before it was successful.
“We’ll just continually express the needs we have here,” Dollin said. “Persistence is something I’ve learned in my 30 years on council.”
Alongside the long-term priority of moving forward with the new hospital, more pressing for the town in the immediacy is finalizing the 2025-2026 budget.
The strong mayor powers granted to Dollin have convoluted the process, she said, but in the end, the experience for Innisfil residents and her colleagues on council should be the same.
What’s made this year more challenging for the municipality are the same things that have made household budgets more daunting as well.
“The pressures of inflation that hit our own pocketbooks hit the town’s pocketbook as well,” Dollin said. “So, everything from collective bargaining to the price of fuel, to the price of insurance, to all those things that are pressures in our own lives are pressures at council, too.”
Add to that the growth pressures that Innisfil faces. While more acutely seen by the double-digit increase to the South Simcoe Police Services budget, the need for additional bodies to serve the community is shared among the town’s departments.
‘There’s a war on talent right now and the most important asset we have are our people,” Dollin said. “We have to pay a fair wage, and we have to create the culture and environment where people feel valued and feel like they are contributing.”
She pointed to the request to add an extra customer service staff member in this year’s budget, to help handle the approximately 45,000 requests that came through town hall in 2024.
When in the community, Dollin hears wonderful feedback about town staff and doesn’t want that to dip. In the mayor's eyes, community engagement was another big win for the town this year, with the success of the inaugural InnisFALL and the various Neighbourhood Nights held throughout the community.
She also lauded the continued volunteer work she sees, especially in service of the town’s less fortunate.
“I also feel the community itself has really stepped up,” Dollin said. “I just can’t believe the number of people in Innisfil who have volunteered in whatever capacity to make their community better. You know, we didn’t do that. We can’t do that. That the community does that for us, it’s really, really welcome.”
For all the highs Dollin found in the community in 2024, two events closer to home will stand out.
This year, Dollin became a grandmother for the first time, as she celebrated her 30th year on Innisfil council.
A lot has changed in the past three decades, but one thing remains the same, she said.
“What hasn’t changed is the passion, and I don’t just mean mine,” Dollin said. “I mean how the residents feel about their community, how the staff feel about doing their work and making change. And the councils that I’ve worked with, everybody’s had that passion. It causes conflict sometimes, because passionate people may not always agree on what’s the best way forward, but that’s the good part about it. If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have that conflict.”
Municipal government really hasn’t changed either, she added.
“It’s not like provincial or federal government; it’s not as prestigious,” Dollin said. “It doesn’t pay well. I mean, you’re not in it for the money. You don’t go into this for the wrong reasons. You go into it for the right reasons because that’s the only reason you do it.”
