Andrii Zvorygin

Andrii Zvorygin

Owen Sound needs a mayor who understands how government actually works.

The mayor chairs meetings and attends ceremonies. Owen Sound’s mayor works with City Council, City staff, Grey County Council, County staff, provincial ministries, federal programs, community organizations, businesses, residents, and the media. The mayor also represents Owen Sound at Grey County Council, where many major decisions affecting the city are shaped.

That means the most relevant experience for mayor is hands-on experience with public systems: understanding how decisions move, how staff reports shape outcomes, how councils respond to public input, how upper-tier governments affect local life, and how to advocate effectively across multiple levels of government.

That is the work Andrii Zvorygin has been doing for years.

Preparing for All Three Parts of the Mayor’s Job

Many people understandably assess mayoral candidates mainly by their City Council experience because Council meetings are the most visible part of municipal government. City Council work forms one major area of the mayor’s responsibilities alongside Grey County governance and mayoral leadership and administration.

A useful way to understand the position is as three broad parts:

City Council: representing residents, evaluating policies, determining services, passing bylaws, reviewing budgets, and working with councillors and City staff.
Grey County Council: working with the other eight mayors, nine deputy mayors, and County staff on housing, homelessness, Ontario Works, child care, paramedics, long-term care, County roads, regional planning, economic development, tourism, and an approximately $300 million combined operating and capital budget.
Mayoral leadership and administration: leading and chairing Council, proposing the City budget, setting financial direction, issuing lawful written staff directions, deciding how powers concerning the City Manager, organizational structure, and Council-only committees are used, promoting public participation, representing Owen Sound, and accepting responsibility for results.

This three-part model is an explanatory framework. It describes the position without assigning an exact legal or time-based formula. It helps residents examine preparation for the whole position and gives context for the visible City Council portion.

Council experience directly prepares someone for the first area. Owen Sound’s deputy mayor also serves at Grey County Council, so deputy-mayor service can provide direct experience with the second area before someone assumes the additional financial, organizational, emergency, and public-leadership responsibilities held specifically by the mayor. This is one valuable path to preparation, alongside other County, financial, administrative, emergency, and public-leadership experience.

The third area is closer to organizational governance and business administration. It requires financial judgment, priority setting, process improvement, senior-management oversight, technology decisions, public accountability, and the ability to turn broad goals into clear directions that professional staff can implement.

Andrii’s experience spans all three areas. He has closely followed City government, spent years working with Grey County elected officials and staff, and, as he describes in his campaign materials, runs two profitable businesses: Lyis Forestry, his farm and nursery business, and LiberIT, his IT business. He has also served in financial roles, built civic-information systems, developed detailed plans for City finances, staffing, services, housing, infrastructure, and public participation, and has experience hosting and moderating international technical discussions with scientists and engineers.

Business Administration, Budgeting, and Financial Direction

Under Owen Sound’s strong-mayor framework, preparing the proposed City budget is the mayor’s personal and legally non-delegable responsibility. The mayor must gather advice from Council and staff, establish financial targets, direct staff to prepare the proposed budget, evaluate competing priorities, and publicly accept responsibility for the result.

The mayor also decides how to use or delegate significant powers concerning the City Manager, the municipality’s organizational structure, Council-only committees, and written directions to staff under Part VI.1 of Ontario’s Municipal Act. These responsibilities combine familiarity with Council procedure, administrative judgment, and the ability to connect public objectives with people, processes, budgets, and measurable results.

Andrii runs two profitable businesses: Lyis Forestry, his farm and nursery business, and LiberIT, his IT business. Keeping a business profitable requires continually balancing revenue and expenses, pricing work and products, purchasing carefully, managing cash flow, planning ahead, paying taxes and other obligations, managing risk, and deciding which expenditures produce enough value to justify their cost. Lyis Forestry provides hands-on experience with pricing, purchasing, inventory, customer orders, shipping, cash-flow planning, taxes, capital and operating costs, risk, long planning horizons, and investments whose results may take years to become visible. LiberIT provides complementary experience pricing professional work, controlling recurring operating costs, evaluating software and equipment spending, choosing between building, buying, maintaining, or replacing systems, automating repetitive work, improving processes, and managing customer requirements. The relevance is practical: both businesses operate profitably, so Andrii has experience making financial and operating trade-offs work in practice over time.

Farming teaches a particular form of financial and operational discipline. Resources are finite, living systems have real limits, weather and markets remain uncertain, and short-term decisions can affect productivity for years. Effective planning means maintaining essential productive capacity while controlling costs, managing risk, and preparing early.

As Treasurer of Grey Bruce Makerspace, Andrii works with financial records, reporting, cost controls, organizational sustainability, and the practical connection between spending and programme results. He previously served as treasurer for a federal campaign, where financial activity also had to follow formal legal and reporting requirements.

The Treasurer role also requires working constructively within board governance. Andrii prepares a proposed budget for Grey Bruce Makerspace, presents the financial information and underlying priorities to the board, answers questions, and listens to the direction chosen collectively by the directors.

Sometimes the board supports the proposed direction. At other times, members prefer different priorities or changes. Effective leadership means arriving with a carefully prepared recommendation while remaining willing to compromise, revise the budget, and adapt the plan to reflect the board’s collective decision.

That experience has a direct parallel with the mayoral budget process. Under Ontario’s strong-mayor framework, the mayor prepares and presents the proposed municipal budget, while Council may propose amendments. The mayor must explain the financial choices, listen to councillors, consider their amendments, and decide how best to move toward a budget that Council and the community can support.

The legal processes of a municipal council and a non-profit board differ, while the central leadership discipline transfers: prepare thoroughly, present clearly, listen respectfully, adapt when the governing body chooses another direction, and remain accountable for helping the organization reach a workable final budget.

Municipal government operates at a much larger scale and is supported by professional financial and administrative staff. The transferable responsibility is executive judgment: understanding what the numbers mean, asking informed questions, distinguishing essential services from avoidable costs, setting clear objectives, evaluating trade-offs, and ensuring residents can see what their money produces.

This experience directly supports Andrii’s proposals for zero-based budgeting, detailed service-level financial reporting, measurable management results, staffing review, debt scrutiny, and clearer public explanations of budget choices.

Official background on these responsibilities is available through the City’s Strong Mayor Powers page.

IT, Systems, and Modern City Administration

Modern municipal government depends on information systems. Property taxes, water billing, permits, work orders, asset management, transit, public records, mapping, procurement, financial reporting, emergency communications, and resident service requests all rely on technology and well-designed administrative processes.

Andrii’s IT experience has taught him to examine how information moves through an organization, identify where a process fails, trace problems to their underlying causes, reduce repetitive work, connect systems, document decisions, and build tools that ordinary people can use.

He has applied those skills locally by working with businesses and community organizations, improving Grey Bruce Makerspace’s website and communications, building HelpOS to make municipal agendas and transcripts easier to follow, and developing practical online tools that turn complex proposals into information residents can examine for themselves.

Andrii’s programming and IT experience directly supports the mayor’s responsibility to prepare a municipal budget. These skills help him process and organize large volumes of financial, operational, infrastructure, and performance information; connect information across departments; identify trends, risks, dependencies, and inconsistencies; test assumptions and scenarios; and turn complex evidence into a clear proposed budget and financial direction for Council.

Programming also allows Andrii to create transparent and repeatable methods for examining information. This can help Council and the public understand how budget assumptions, service priorities, capital plans, and long-term costs fit together. His IT experience is therefore practical preparation for one of the mayor’s central responsibilities: using extensive financial and administrative information to prepare a responsible, evidence-based municipal budget.

Relevant leadership questions include:

Can residents easily find the information or service they need?
Are staff entering the same information repeatedly?
Can Council see the cost and measurable result of each service?
Does the City control its own data and retain practical alternatives to vendor dependence?
Are privacy, security, accessibility, backups, and long-term maintenance built into the system?
Could modern software or a redesigned process reduce recurring costs while improving service?

IT savings often come from improving the underlying process, removing duplication, using open standards, and choosing tools that fit the City’s actual needs. Technology also makes stronger transparency possible through searchable budgets, service dashboards, public records, project tracking, and clear reporting of management goals and results.

Andrii’s combination of IT, financial, business, and civic-information experience would help Council evaluate technology proposals with informed judgment, choose systems that fit the City’s actual needs and resources, and direct modernization toward practical resident outcomes.

Experience Across All Levels of Government

Andrii has served as treasurer for a federal campaign and has interviewed candidates in both provincial and federal elections. He has also advocated to municipal, County, provincial, and federal governments on issues affecting local resilience, food security, housing, manufacturing capacity, public cooperation, and the long-term wellbeing of our communities.

He has written to councillors, staff, ministers, premiers, and the Prime Minister. Many of the directions Andrii advocated for were later adopted, funded, advanced, investigated, or reflected in public decisions.

Complex public decisions involve many people, many pressures, and many institutions. Andrii’s claim is practical: he has repeatedly identified important directions early, communicated them across the right channels, and helped move public conversations toward workable outcomes.

That is directly relevant to the job of mayor.

County Experience and Social Cohesion Matter

Owen Sound’s mayor also serves at Grey County Council. That makes County-level experience a central part of the job.

Andrii has spent years directly interacting with Grey County council and staff processes. He has followed County meetings closely, communicated with councillors and staff, raised policy issues, studied reports, and worked to understand how County decisions affect Owen Sound.

He has also been present during periods when County-level relationships were under real strain. During those times, Andrii worked to encourage cooperation, reduce conflict, and help councillors see one another as partners in service who can work together across the table.

To Andrii, this is a vital part of leadership. Good government depends on trust. A mayor needs policy knowledge, relationship-building skills, administrative judgment, financial leadership, and the ability to turn priorities into coordinated action. A mayor also needs the ability to strengthen relationships, support constructive dialogue, and help a council table move from friction toward shared purpose.

Grey County is now in a much healthier and more cohesive place, reflecting progress since some of those earlier periods. Many people contributed to that improvement. Andrii is grateful to have played a civic role in encouraging that movement toward cooperation.

Based on his direct involvement, Andrii believes he brings extensive hands-on County-level experience and strong preparation for representing Owen Sound at the County table.

That matters because Owen Sound needs a mayor who can represent the city effectively at the County table from day one, while also helping build the trust and cooperation needed to get real work done.

Co-Creation, Local Manufacturing, and the Makerspace

One of the major directions Andrii advocated for was a local co-creation centre: a place where people could learn, build, repair, invent, prototype, and manufacture locally.

The vision was simple. A resilient community needs the capacity to make things, fix things, teach skills, and turn ideas into practical tools.

That direction later became visible through the Grey Bruce Makerspace, with federal support and County support through space. Andrii advocated for this kind of capacity through emails and public appeals, and many other people carried essential parts of the work. Others applied for grants, organized with the County, helped secure space, hired staff, built programming, maintained equipment, and kept the day-to-day operations moving.

Andrii’s own role has also continued in practical service. When the former treasurer stepped away, Andrii stepped into the treasurer role. He is also helping revamp the website to reduce costs, improve communication, and support the long-term sustainability of the organization.

The treasurer and technology work also provides practical administrative experience. Financial information must be organized so a board can understand the organization’s position, distinguish recorded results from projections, identify emerging cost pressures, and make responsible decisions. The website and communications work requires examining recurring costs, choosing appropriate tools, maintaining reliable information, and making services easier for members and the public to understand.

This combination of financial oversight, technology, communication, and organizational problem-solving is directly relevant to mayoral leadership. The mayor works with professional staff and Council across a much larger public organization and applies the same core disciplines: clear information, responsible priorities, reliable systems, measurable results, and accountability for public resources.

This kind of experience matters for mayor because Owen Sound needs practical economic development rooted in local capacity, trades, repair, entrepreneurship, shared tools, and community wealth. It also shows how Andrii tends to serve: by advocating for useful institutions, supporting the people who build them, and stepping into practical responsibilities when help is needed.

Food Security, Housing, and Carrying Capacity

Andrii has also advocated for housing and land-use decisions grounded in carrying capacity: food, water, land, energy, infrastructure, and the real ability of communities to support life.

That advocacy has included sustainable permaculture communities, food-producing neighbourhoods, co-operative land models, and development patterns that connect housing with food security.

Grey County has since approved a food-production co-operative model involving homes connected to shared agricultural land. That direction closely aligns with the carrying-capacity and land-based community principles Andrii has advocated for.

This matters because housing, affordability, food security, infrastructure costs, and land use belong in one conversation. Owen Sound needs leadership that approaches those issues as interconnected parts of long-term community planning.

Intergovernmental Advocacy

Local problems often involve multiple levels of government. Municipalities deal with many impacts of decisions made provincially and federally, especially around housing, infrastructure, food systems, energy, health, and social services.

At council tables, people sometimes say, “someone should tell the Province,” or “someone should raise this federally.” Effective intergovernmental work identifies the practical path forward: who should be contacted, which ministry is responsible, and whether the issue should go through an MP, MPP, minister, association, staff channel, delegation, public consultation, or grant program.

That is an area where Andrii already has substantial experience. He has worked with local MPs and MPPs, engaged with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, written to premiers, the Prime Minister, ministers, councillors, and staff, and developed familiarity with which offices and public bodies are relevant to different issues.

Andrii has repeatedly appealed for stronger cooperation among federal, provincial, and territorial governments, especially on shared challenges that affect municipalities and require coordinated responsibility. Canada has since developed closer coordination through frequent First Ministers’ meetings, where the Prime Minister and provincial and territorial premiers work together through a unified Team Canada approach. The premiers also coordinate their shared priorities through the Council of the Federation, the established forum connecting all 13 provincial and territorial governments. Together, these channels support sustained cooperation across Canada’s governments on major national and regional challenges.

During public debate around the notwithstanding clause, Andrii also drafted and circulated a clarification to interested parties at a time when provincial leaders were asking for clearer explanation. After that clarification was circulated, those public calls for clarification appeared to subside.

Complex public decisions involve many people, pressures, and institutions. Andrii offers these points as examples of alignment between his advocacy and later public movement, rather than as claims of sole causation. The practical point is this: Andrii understands how to communicate across levels of government, how to frame issues for the people with authority to act, and how to keep local realities visible in broader conversations.

Respecting Jurisdiction and Using Local Power

Andrii also understands that each level of government has its own responsibilities, tools, limits, and opportunities. Effective leadership means knowing which level of government can do what, and where local action belongs.

That matters because Owen Sound and Grey County already have enormous ability to solve local problems with local resources, local relationships, local land, local institutions, and local people.

Appropriate provincial and federal partnerships can support local action. Andrii’s approach mobilizes Owen Sound’s local resources, local relationships, local land, local institutions, local skills, and community capacity while also pursuing appropriate outside partnerships. This combination strengthens our own institutions and helps local people solve local problems.

Grey County has been recognized as one of the most innovative counties in Ontario for many years, reflecting the remarkable people, businesses, farmers, builders, staff, organizers, technologists, and community leaders who live here. Owen Sound can draw from that strength. We can solve local problems here, then set an example others can learn from.

Scientific Podcasts, Global Awareness, and Local Readiness

Local leadership requires foresight. Energy costs, resource availability, supply-chain conditions, infrastructure pressures, technological changes, housing demand, food security, and economic transitions can develop internationally before their effects become fully visible in Owen Sound.

Andrii hosts regular podcasts and a monthly international panel bringing together scientists and engineers who study resources, energy, transition planning, technological systems, and long-term viability. These conversations give him direct access to people who examine the physical systems and emerging trends that shape communities, industries, public infrastructure, and household affordability. The panel also helps some of the greatest minds in the world work together constructively.

Preparing for these discussions requires Andrii to study technical material, understand the participants’ areas of expertise, identify the central questions, compare evidence and scenarios, and connect specialized knowledge across several disciplines. Hosting the conversations requires careful listening, useful follow-up questions, constructive moderation, clear communication, and the ability to help people with varied perspectives develop a shared understanding.

These are directly transferable mayoral skills. Municipal decisions regularly depend upon specialized advice from engineers, planners, financial professionals, department heads, consultants, emergency personnel, technology specialists, and other subject-matter experts. A mayor must be able to understand their reports, ask informed questions, identify connections among departments, evaluate long-term implications, and explain complex choices clearly to Council and residents.

The subjects discussed also connect directly with municipal responsibilities. Energy systems affect City facilities, transit, household costs, and economic development. Resource and material constraints affect construction, road maintenance, water and wastewater systems, procurement, and capital planning. Supply-chain conditions affect the availability and cost of vehicles, equipment, replacement parts, building materials, and essential services. Long-term viability affects land-use planning, housing, food security, infrastructure investment, emergency readiness, and the resilience of the local economy.

The podcasts also demonstrate Andrii’s ability to convene knowledgeable people and create constructive dialogue around difficult questions. That experience is relevant to leading Council, working with Grey County, coordinating with staff, receiving public input, and bringing several forms of expertise together around a practical direction.

Regular conversations with scientists and engineers help Andrii identify emerging risks, understand possible responses, and examine the assumptions behind major proposals. He can then apply that knowledge through the local circumstances, authority, resources, and priorities of Owen Sound.

This experience supports a mayoral approach grounded in early preparation, evidence-based decisions, long-term financial awareness, constructive collaboration, and clear public communication. It helps Owen Sound recognize changing conditions early, prepare practical responses, and make infrastructure and budget decisions that remain useful for many years.

The Experience Owen Sound Needs

Experience in elected office contributes important knowledge of Council procedure. The complete mayoral role also draws upon County governance, budgeting, administration, intergovernmental advocacy, organizational leadership, public communication, and long-term planning.

The mayor’s actual work also requires:

preparing budgets and setting clear financial direction,
preparing a proposed budget for a governing board, explaining its assumptions, and adapting it through collective deliberation,
understanding business administration and financial controls,
evaluating organizational structure and senior-management results,
using technology to improve services, reduce duplication, and strengthen transparency,
understanding how data, software, privacy, security, accessibility, and vendor dependence affect municipal operations,
connecting spending decisions with measurable resident outcomes,
understanding and questioning specialized technical advice,
synthesizing evidence across engineering, finance, planning, infrastructure, energy, and public administration,
convening people with varied expertise around a constructive shared direction,
translating complex technical information into clear public explanations,
connecting emerging global conditions with practical local preparation,
understanding City and County processes,
working constructively with staff and councils,
knowing how to advocate to upper levels of government,
understanding which responsibilities belong municipally, provincially, and federally,
knowing which offices, ministries, representatives, and public bodies to contact,
mobilizing local resources, institutions, and community capacity while building appropriate outside partnerships,
communicating clearly with residents,
identifying practical policy directions,
building institutional cooperation,
connecting housing, food, infrastructure, energy, and affordability,
anticipating long-term risks before they become acute,
and helping ideas move from public concern into public action.

That is the experience Andrii brings.

He has spent years doing the work around government: listening, studying, writing, advocating, organizing, communicating, building relationships, hosting serious policy conversations, and helping practical ideas reach the people with authority to act.

Owen Sound needs a mayor who can work locally, represent the city effectively at Grey County, advocate to the Province and federal government, and help residents understand and participate in the decisions that affect their lives.

Across the three major parts of the position, Andrii brings close knowledge of City government, extensive relationships and policy experience at Grey County, hands-on business, financial, technological, and organizational experience, and technical synthesis, constructive moderation, and sustained engagement with scientists and engineers relevant to the mayor’s distinct administrative responsibilities.

For the actual work of mayor, Andrii believes he brings the most relevant hands-on experience in this race.

As mayor, Andrii would bring that experience into public office in service of Owen Sound: transparent government, meaningful participation, practical compassion, food security, local resilience, and cooperation across every level of government.

The Most Relevant Experience for Mayor