Dan Melanson has entered the mayoral race for the second time, officially throwing his hat in the ring on July 25.
The president of Trend Tec Canada and CEO of Aircrew Training Canada Ltd., who finished second to Brian Bigger in the 2014 election, is back for another campaign and he spoke to a crowd of about a dozen people at Buzzy Brown's during his campaign launch Wednesday morning.
In addition to officially entering the race, Melanson released his agenda for his first 100 days if elected mayor. Highlighted in his platform are economic development, the former St. Joseph's Hospital site, industrial tax base and size of municipal government.
When speaking about economic development, Melanson says he will form a mayor's advisory group that will include the chair of the Greater Sudbury Development Corporation and a select group of business leaders to take on a complete operational and governance review of the city's economic development department.
"This group will meet with me on a regular basis to advise on development opportunities," said Melanson. "A revitalized and refocused economic development corporation will focus on our all-out efforts to diversify and attract new investments in our city."
You can find Melanson's platform that was outlined at Wednesday's campaign launch here.
The push from the community lent to Melanson's decision to run once again, indicating that in the weeks leading up to his decision he was inundated with people asking whether or not he would be running in this year's election.
Melanson believes that the public perception of Mayor Brian Bigger has shifted since the 2014 election.
"I think last time around there was a certain perception that surrounded Mayor Bigger's campaign and I think those perceptions have been proven to be false," said Melanson.
"The reality is a lot of people who perhaps supported Mr. Bigger last time around have got, shall we say, voter remorse and are looking for a platform that more closely mimics what I was saying last time."
A recent announcement from Noront that Sudbury was no longer in the running for the location of a ferrochrome smelter highlighted to Melanson that the city's economic development efforts are lacking direction.
"Our economic development efforts are really wandering around in the wilderness," said Melanson. "We should have been able to put together a top notch, world-class proposal, but to get knocked out in the first round that really illustrates to me that we need some vision and leadership and really need to revamp our whole effort with regards to economic development."
Falling in line with the common thread of candidates questioning the leadership of mayor Bigger, Melanson says that there have been some positives from Bigger's stint as mayor, but there seems to be a lack of vision with decisions made.
"To say that Maley Drive is going to be an economic generator, sure during the construction phase, but after that it just turns into another piece of road that we have to maintain, it just adds to our infrastructure situation. Where we should be concentrating our efforts is reducing our infrastructure deficit not increasing the miles of roads that we have to deal with," said Melanson.
"With regards to The Kingsway development, I think it's a great development — it's going to do some positive things — but why does the city have to pay for it? The initial proposal as I understood it was a partnership and the city rejected that. I don't understand why the city would walk away from private money and take the entire debt on (itsel)."
When it comes to the size of Sudbury's municipal government, Melanson has vowed to implement a hiring freeze during his first 100 days as mayor, and review all departments' staffing requirements, beginning with management.
"I am convinced that efficiency can be found and that, through attrition and retirements, the public service in this city can be reduced, while maintaining and indeed improving the delivery of services to our citizens," said Melanson.
Melanson joins a slate of candidates who've lined up to unseat Bigger (who is seeking re-election). In the race so far are Cody Cacciotti, operations manager at the Northern Ontario Railroad Museum; Jeff Huska, a biomedical tech. at Health Sciences North; Patricia Mills, head of the NEO Kids Foundation; Bill Crumplin, an environmental studies professor at Laurentian University; and Bill Sanders, an employee of Laurentian University.
The deadline to join the race is 2 p.m. on July 27.
