It is now less than a year until the next city election — Oct. 24, 2022 — when Barrie voters will choose their next mayor and 10 city councillors.
BarrieToday asked members of Barrie city council five questions and all of them responded to each one.
This is the second installment in a five-part series of stories on their answers, which are published verbatim, except for spelling, grammar and style corrections. Part 1 queried council members on their plans to ran for re-election.
Today’s question is: What is the most significant issue Barrie city council has faced during the first three years of its term of office, how successful was council in resolving this matter and why?
Mayor Jeff Lehman
“The housing crisis. This is affecting everyone in Barrie in one way or another but particularly those of modest income and the most vulnerable. Council has made considerable progress, but the crisis continues and we will need help from the federal and provincial governments to make a deeper impact.
We have achieved the 2024 targets for new affordable units several years early, we have our first supportive housing development in Barrie, Lucy’s Place, with more in the pipeline, and we recently made some bold moves to expand the supply of affordable housing even further.
We will see the highest number of housing starts in 2021 that we have seen for more than 15 years. But we’re still chasing an ever-rising cost of living and as the crisis is the result of decades of issues, it will take a sustained focus to resolve.”
Coun. Clare Riepma (Ward 1)
“Without a doubt the most significant issue has been the COVID-19 pandemic. Quick action by our staff reduced our services and our expenses and kept us in a solid financial position. We were able to agree on giving help to reduce the burden on residents and to support our local businesses.
While the city’s jurisdiction in this area is limited, we did as much as we could and our staff received international recognition for their efforts.”
Coun. Keenan Aylwin (Ward 2)
“The most significant issues that Barrie city council has faced during this term are the two public health crises — the COVID-19 pandemic and the toxic drug supply crisis. On the COVID-19 pandemic, I believe Barrie city council did a decent job of listening to the science and taking the actions required to keep our community safe. High vaccination rates and relatively low case numbers in the third wave are the result of a strong community where people care for each other. It was good to see a united front from council on the measures implemented to protect people.
We were less successful in tackling the toxic drug supply crisis. We’ve seen the number of deaths increase over the last few years as city council delayed the creation of a life-saving supervised consumption site. I’m glad that we’ve endorsed the latest application, but we need to put more pressure on our local MPPs and the provincial government to approve the application as quickly as possible. The longer they delay, the more people will die.
I’m also encouraged by council giving approval to a motion from Coun. Natalie Harris and I in support of drug decriminalization, a regulated safe supply and an end to the failed war on drugs.”
Coun. Ann-Marie Kungl (Ward 3)
“In this term, without question, the most significant issue we have faced is the pandemic. I think council has been effective in taking timely and measured responses to local impacts related to this global crisis.
For example, council and staff brought forward important financial strategies that helped reduce costs to residents and businesses experiencing COVID-19 related hardships. It is such an unprecedented time, and I am proud to be part of this term of council, which has made significant contributions to supporting public health efforts like mass vaccine clinic operations.
I think our values fell into alignment through this crisis and we were very successful in establishing a 2021 budget that balanced responding to this extraordinary situation and ensured continuity in essential city service operations. It is important to recognize the strength of staff across all departments that were essential to our ability to quickly resolve issues as they arose and bring forward sound strategies to council.”
Deputy Mayor Barry Ward (Ward 4)
“The most significant issue Barrie council faced during the past three years was the same issue that was most significant for all of society: the pandemic. On a personal level, we had to adjust to a new way of holding meetings and dealing with our residents.
From a city hall perspective, we had to close facilities, cancel community events, reduce transit and lay off staff, among many other things.
I think city council was successful in doing what it could to alleviate the impact on people and businesses, such as waiving late fees, making it easier for restaurants to have patios and helping companies access provincial and federal programs, and delivering a budget with a tax increase under one per cent, among other things.
City hall staff did a great job of minimizing the pandemic’s impact on revenue, although it wasn’t, unfortunately, without some pain to staff and residents.”
Coun. Robert Thomson (Ward 5)
“I believe the most significant challenge we have had to deal with so far this term is the COVID pandemic. The uncertainty for our residents and small businesses in terms of public health and the impacts on our economy has been extremely challenging. A lot of municipal governments dealt with this in a different manner than we did.
We were able to pivot quickly in terms of level of service. We made tough decisions to end the year in the black, where a lot of other municipalities were in the red. We turned our focus to addressing the provincial restrictions and supporting our health unit in delivering important services to our residents.
We were aligned in our efforts to ensure regular updates and information was available to help residents navigate through uncharted waters. Enforcement services were focused on enforcing parking along the waterfront as per council’s direction allowing for residents to enjoy our parks and beaches.
Another key focus was helping businesses to the best of our ability with things like Digital MainStreet, supporting businesses getting online, patios everywhere, extending patio season downtown and helping small businesses to connect to funding resources.”
Coun. Natalie Harris (Ward 6)
“It's difficult to select just one! We have navigated our way as a collective council through COVID-19, an EF-2 tornado, the ongoing toxic drug crisis (including the application of a supervised consumption site), and we can’t forget the gypsy moths!
But, I would say that COVID-19 would be the most all-encompassing issue we have faced. This has included the management of the ever-changing provincial and federal mandates, advising the public with respect to multiple anti-mask and anti-vaccination rallies, implementing remote meetings for the first time in the history of the City of Barrie, addressing mounting challenges faced by our businesses, implementation of mass vaccination clinics and testing centres.”
Coun. Gary Harvey (Ward 7)
“One of the most significant issues that this council has faced was the 2021 budget. With us being in the midst of a pandemic and several hundred staff being laid off, there were significant financial constraints placed upon the city.
With some significant amendments to the budget, removing anything that was not a must have right now, we were able to deliver the lowest budget increase in 20 years at 0.92 per cent along with lowering the DIRF (Dedicated Infrastructure Renewal Fund) to 0.25 per cent from 1.0 per cent.”
Coun. Jim Harris (Ward 8)
“The most significant issue faced during this term of council has without a doubt been dealing with the impact of a world-wide pandemic. Occurring just a little over one year into our term and now approaching two years, the impact of the pandemic has been felt in all aspects of city operations. Pivoting and adjusting to the economic, social and personal impact of the pandemic has required city staff and council to remain focused and vigilant in all service areas.
Examples include meeting the needs of local business, managing access to city facilities, adjusting recreation and leisure programming, keeping infrastructure work on track, supporting public health vaccination efforts, dealing with waterfront beach overcrowding and over-flow parking issues, safely delivering core and essential services, maintaining the safe operation of city transit, supporting those experiencing homelessness, and creating plans to assist residents with the payment of utilities and property taxes — all while responding to the changes in rules and regulations set by provincial and federal government.”
Coun. Sergio Morales (Ward 9)
“The biggest challenge has been trying to help our residents with struggles on issues that have caused unexpected pain. They’ve been affected by a global pandemic, a tornado, our downtown businesses by the road reconstruction and changing business restrictions, and runaway home prices that have seen home prices increase hundreds of thousands of dollars, pricing residents who want to raise their families here out of Barrie. These issues are difficult because we want to alleviate the pain, but a lot of the time we rely on other levels of government on being able to do so.”
Coun. Mike McCann (Ward 10)
“The pandemic has been the most significant issue. We were extremely successful working as a team with staff to battle the potential economical shortfalls. As of the third quarter we were $5 million in the black, whereas most cities were in the red, in debt like Toronto, at tens of million of dollars.
Where we failed, in a big way, was when the COVID mandates stated that our small businesses could reopen and the mayor, who had the power under the state of emergency, decided not to allow this to happen in Barrie. As a councillor, I tried to convince our mayor to re-open our businesses and he refused. As a result, the small business community were not happy with this council and have lost much trust.
I have been working with them every day to restore their trust and let them know that there are some Barrie city councillors that care. The Barrie landmark sign is a perfect example of how we are trying to stimulate the economy and promote small business and draw more people to Barrie as a destination. Just as Toronto Maple Leaf fans bleed blue, I bleed Barrie and believe we are all on one team…Team Barrie!”
