It’s one thing to run an election campaign and win decisively, but it’s another to hit the ground running with everything that comes after as the real work begins.
In her first foray into provincial politics, Andrea Khanjin had a landslide victory June 7, winning the Barrie-Innisfil riding by almost 10,000 votes more than the second-place finisher and garnering close to 50 per cent of the ballots cast.
But the day after her big win, as Khanjin made the rounds doing media interviews, her staff scurried to get everything set up to begin serving constituents.
For Melissa Varsava, Khanjin’s executive assistant, her priority was to find office space.
“Because we are a new riding, we didn’t have an office to move into,” said Varsava, adding Doug Downey, who won the Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte riding which includes the city’s north end, was able to take over former Liberal Barrie MPP Ann Hoggarth’s office on Bell Farm Road.
The Khanjin settled on 237 Mapleview Dr. E., Unit 1, near the intersection of Huronia Road, in the city’s south end.
“We wanted to be in this location, preferably, because it’s the most central area in the riding that we could be,” Varsava told BarrieToday on Tuesday afternoon. “It’s one block away from being in Innisfil, so for us it is the perfect, happy medium in the riding.”
But finding office space in the city, with some specific parameters as far as location, isn’t easy.
“It was difficult, but we lucked out because this place came available at the end of June,” Varsava said. “So we were extremely lucky. Finding a place that was already set up to be an office was really challenging.”
A turn-key operation was paramount.
“We wanted to find an office that was already finished,” Varsava said. “We didn’t want to do renovations; we wanted to be very fiscally responsible with whatever renovations that needed to be done, and luckily this was move-in ready.
“It was all pretty smooth, to be honest,” she said, adding they’re working to make the office wheelchair-accessible as well as adding a front counter. “Those are really the only thing we’ve had to do.”
Their new office space, which formerly housed an RV importing company, is located next door to where Khanjin’s campaign headquarters was.
It was still rather spartan on Tuesday, but they’re making gains.
The desks were provided by the Legislative Assembly, which furnishes all new MPP offices, Varsava said, adding there were more than a dozen new ridings, all of which needed new furniture.
They still need to have an exterior sign installed.
“The measurements are being done tomorrow (Wednesday) for that,” Varsava added. “We still don’t have our computers. We’re using personal computers right now.
“We have phones, we have internet. We don’t have a printer or a fax machine, but I brought mine from home,” she said with a laugh.
So it’s still very much a guerilla operation.
Working at the Mapleview Drive office, which comprises approximately 1,700 square feet, will be two full-time and two part-time staffers.
“It’s probably just about the right size,” Varsava said the location. “Maybe I wish the boardroom was a little bigger, but otherwise it’s good to go.”
Despite rapid advancements in technology, people do still show up at the constituency office.
“It’s a lot of email and a lot of phone (calls), but we’ve started having people coming into the office,” Varsava said just as the phone began ringing. “Not a lot of people know where we are just yet.”
Their office emails are working, but they are still working toward getting their personal email accounts set up.
The office, which can be reached by phone at 705-722-0575, is open Monday to Thursday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m., and Fridays from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m.
The Khanjin team is planning for an official grand opening sometime in September.
Khanjin and Varsava have known each other from more than a dozen years, going back to their university days and meeting through youth politics. Khanjin, who grew up in Barrie, studied at the University of Ottawa while Varsava, a Bradford native, did her schooling at Brock University.
“We’ve always gotten along really well politically and we’ve always been really good friends. We lost track for a few years, because she was in Ottawa and I was down here, but we always stayed in touch,” said Varsava, who has been living in Barrie for six years.
Varsava has two children, a four-year-old boy and a three-year-old girl, so that becomes a balancing act.
“It is challenging,” she said with a laugh. “I work from home a few days a week. I try to be in the office as much as possible and sometimes I bring them into the office with me, but they’re three and four, so they get bored.”
Varsava said she is loving her new job.
“For me personally, it’s exciting because I was actually a stay-at-home mom,” she said. “I worked in politics when I was out of university, then I made a switch into insurance and then I was a stay-at-home mom for four and a half years. When Andrea won the nomination, she asked me to be her campaign manager and she’s not letting me go.”
