Why vote for me? My promise is to work hard for the citizens of Ward 7 everyday and to work collaboratively with the new council to at get Greater Sudbury moving forward and winning.
Greater Sudbury is great city with great people. I have lived here all of my life. It truly is the great outdoors 365 days a year. But it has been stagnant too long and seems broken in too many ways. I believe I have the education, knowledge, experience, leadership skills and passion to help get things back on track and to make a difference.
I am 60 years old and a retired insurance professional with over 30 years of successful small business ownership behind me and the future of my grandchildren in front of me. I have an honours degree in public administration with a specialty in economic policy development and I spent two years working as a researcher and policy analyst at Queen's Park before returning to Sudbury in 1986. I know how government works and how public policy is created and implemented.
My roots in Ward 7 run strong and deep. My family was raised in Garson where we maintained a family home for 25 years. In 1997, I founded the Nickel Centre Soccer Club where a second generation of kids continue to play.
I am the past chair of the Robert Jack Parent Council and I was involved in the Nickel Centre Minor Hockey for 10 years. For over 10 years I was also the insurance broker of record for the former Town of Nickel Centre.
I have lived, worked and played in Ward 7 more than half of my adult life. My granddaughter lives in Garson and attends St. Augustine. I remain connected and knocking on doors over the past number of weeks has in some ways felt like a homecoming.
Citizens of Ward 7 and throughout our city are not being heard. There is too much centralization of power and our governing elites have lost respect for the taxpayers’ dollars. It is council's job to safeguard the purse strings and spend wisely, yet there is so much foolish spending.
It is council that sets the tone; it is council that determines the priorities, and; it is council that makes the policies.
I want to help build a new council that has the courage to face the problems, the leadership to seek the solutions and the will to implement the changes. A council that the citizens of Ward 7 and all of Greater Sudbury deserve and will be proud of.
The tail has been wagging the dog at city hall because there has been too much division and too many councillors seem to have their own spending and policy agendas with little regard for our actual needs.
There is much more to Greater Sudbury than the downtown and I will be a councillor that understands this.
Having said this, I had an office downtown for 16 years and I am saddened by what our downtown has become. I will support the renewal of a Downtown Master Plan that has homelessness, the opioid crisis and affordable housing as its cornerstone and central focus. We have been trying the shiny new building and fancy street approach for over 30 years and yet people are still avoiding the area, shops are still closing and business is still leaving.
We need to actually begin the process of cleaning it up and start saving lost souls. Only then can we truly move forward and create the economic activity and development that we seek and get us all to want to go downtown again.
As for my platform, I will create Citizens' Advisory Panels that will meet regularly to provide me with an opportunity to listen and learn from the people and I will encourage and foster the growth of existing Community Action Networks.
I will provide the people with information and an opportunity to participate in the decision-making process before policy decisions are made.
I will also pursue actual and real changes to our burdensome, expensive and intimidating building and zoning approval process.
I will ask the important questions, get the real answers and advocate for the changes that will lead our city forward.
I will immediately present a motion to pause the Junction East project and seek to have this borrowed money reallocated to our real problems — addiction and homeless facilities, affordable housing, seniors assisted living, fire and police services and our decaying infrastructure.
I will seek to provide Ward 7 and all other wards with more funding for local development and area improvement by increasing the Healthy Community Initiative funding and I will seek to amend the bylaw to allow for more local autonomy and control over the projects.
I will seek efficiencies through the implementation of zero=-based budgeting, line-item reviews and take a good and hard look at why 43 cents of every dollar in our city goes to wages and benefits.
I will have Ward 7’s back and together we will work to move our city forward.
Mark McKillop is running for the Greater Sudbury city council seat in Ward 7 in the Oct. 24 municipal election.
