Responses to Concerned Owen Sound Taxpayers

On 29 August 2026, Concerned Owen Sound Taxpayers (COST) sent municipal candidates eight groups of questions about municipal costs, accountability, growth and the challenges facing downtown Owen Sound. These are my complete responses as a candidate for Mayor.

1. Municipal leadership and management

City Hall needs a simpler structure with clear responsibility at every level. The Mayor and Council would establish public priorities; the City Manager would coordinate the administration; functional working heads would own their services, budgets and results; and professional and frontline employees would deliver services. I would review overlapping management roles, unnecessary approval layers and positions whose responsibilities can be combined as vacancies arise.

Every senior manager should have a short set of measurable annual objectives connected to Council’s priorities. The public should be able to see those objectives, progress updates and year-end results. New positions should require a public business case explaining their purpose, full cost and expected improvement in service.

Under Ontario’s strong-mayor system, the Mayor has authority to appoint the City Manager. If recruitment occurs, I would seek someone with demonstrated success in organizational transformation, process improvement, responsible cost reduction and respectful change management. Existing leadership should receive a fair assessment against clearly established expectations.

I support legally reviewed, renewable fixed-term contracts for future senior appointments. A meaningful portion of compensation could be tied to a balanced scorecard that includes cost control, service reliability, resident satisfaction, employee safety and retention, legal compliance and completion of Council directions. This would reward durable improvements instead of short-term savings that create larger costs later.

Relevant platform: A Lean, Accountable City Organization and Open Government and Fiscal Transparency.

2. Controlling property-tax increases

I would use a stricter standard than inflation: what Owen Sound households can afford to pay. Inflation means residents are already paying more for food, housing, energy, transportation and other essentials. When wages and pensions lag behind those costs, increasing property taxes at the same rate compounds the loss of household purchasing power.

At the beginning of each budget, the Mayor and Council should publish a household affordability limit using the best available information on local incomes, wages and pensions, essential living costs, tax and water arrears, and the existing municipal burden per household. The goal should be to keep property taxes stable or declining as a share of median local household income. Growth-related costs should first be matched with new assessment revenue and applicable development charges.

Municipal budgeting should begin with household and physical reality. As inexpensive energy and material inputs become harder to secure, the costs of fuel, machinery, construction, insurance and public services can rise while household purchasing power falls. Passing every increase through to taxpayers would steadily impoverish the community. Those pressures require the City to adapt rather than automatically pass higher costs to households. Essential services must be planned within what residents can sustain, with long-range preparation for a smaller material and financial resource base.

Any increase beyond the household affordability limit should be limited to a legal requirement, emergency, immediate public-safety need or critical infrastructure failure. It should be presented separately with its cost per household, duration, alternatives and offsetting savings. The City Manager provides professional advice, while the Mayor proposes the budget and Council can amend it. Final accountability belongs to elected officials.

Relevant platform: Lower Property Taxes Through Better Government and Zero-Based Budgeting and Finding Efficiencies.

3. Reducing the cost of government

Yes, I would require every department to identify 5-10% in potential savings as part of the budget process, including staffing and management options. This would give Council a transparent menu of choices. It would be a starting exercise rather than the same automatic reduction applied to every service.

The first priorities should be eliminating obsolete work, simplifying approvals, replacing duplicated manual processes with modern software, improving purchasing and preventive maintenance, extending asset life through repair and local sourcing, and consolidating unnecessary management layers. Staffing reductions should follow the removal, automation or consolidation of work, with vacancies and attrition used wherever practical. Frontline services should be evaluated against published service standards and results.

The City’s 2011 budget is a useful benchmark, although adjusting it solely by inflation would assume that residents’ ability to pay rose at the same rate. I would compare 2011 with today using spending per household, the municipal burden as a share of median local household income, staffing and management levels, debt, service levels, legislative changes and capital responsibilities. The budget target would remain governed by household affordability.

I would combine that comparison with rotating zero-based reviews in which each service explains its current purpose, service level, cost and results from the ground up. Shared Stewardship can also expand Owen Sound’s capacity through voluntary, City-approved neighbourhood reporting, cleanups, gardens, snow-neighbour support, safety walks and other practical activities. This supplements trained municipal workers, strengthens prevention and helps keep small problems from becoming expensive emergencies.

Owen Sound’s existing Service Review identified 53 opportunities and anticipated approximately $2 million in direct and indirect savings. One of my first steps would be to publish which recommendations were completed, the savings actually realized, and the work that remains.

Relevant platform: Lower Property Taxes Through Better Government, Open Government and Fiscal Transparency and Participation and Local Capacity.

4. Council accountability and relationship with taxpayers

I support publishing the maximum information legally available about City finances, staffing, services and decisions. This should include the rationale for major spending, business cases for staffing increases, consultant scopes and costs, completed consultant reports, salary ranges, procurement information, expected results and follow-up reports showing what was achieved.

Before a major decision, residents should see its purpose, alternatives, lifecycle cost, funding source and estimated cost per household. Afterward, they should be able to see whether the promised result occurred. My work through HelpOS, publishing agendas, transcripts and plain-language explanations of municipal decisions, demonstrates how I would approach this responsibility.

During the coming term, I would assign each of the seven councillors primary responsibility for one geographic ward while every councillor remains elected at large and represents the whole city. Smaller Local Areas of roughly 150 households would have Local Representatives who invite every household to an annual neighbourhood gathering and help connect residents with the City. Residents and Council could then evaluate whether to establish electoral wards for 2030. An online public forum would let residents raise proposals, ask questions and follow the official response.

Residents are stakeholders when they can see the information, participate early enough to influence a decision and identify who is accountable for the result.

Relevant platform: Open Government and Fiscal Transparency, Participation and Local Capacity and Ward and Local Representation.

5. Homelessness, addiction and the downtown

Yes. Grey County leads housing and homelessness services, while the City is responsible for public spaces, bylaws, policing, transit and downtown conditions. I would seek a joint action plan with assigned responsibilities and publicly reported results.

My approach connects immediate help, homelessness prevention, affordable living, a safer downtown and Voluntary Recovery. This includes a mobile meal pilot with OSHaRE, accessible service locations that reduce the concentration of services downtown, County-coordinated housing placement, tenant information and action on long-vacant homes.

The main operational change would be clearer responsibility and a measured three-stream response through Owen Sound’s Emergency Communications Centre, where practical:

1. Civic response for suitable bylaw and property issues, neighbourhood disputes, voluntary mediation, service navigation, recurring nuisance concerns and municipal work orders.
2. Trained civilian crisis response for screened lower-risk mental-health distress, voluntary wellness checks, homelessness and addiction support, and business de-escalation, with police available as rapid backup.
3. Police response for violence, credible threats, weapons, crimes in progress, serious investigations, arrests, detention, search, forced entry and immediate threats to life or public safety.

Local Representatives could help organize voluntary neighbourhood watches, resolve concerns early and identify recurring problems. Residents would observe and report, while enforcement, legal decisions and crisis intervention would remain with qualified professionals.

Laws and bylaws should be enforced consistently when conduct affects public safety or the use of shared spaces. Publicly supported communal housing and services should have clear safety and conduct expectations suited to each setting and each person’s capacity. I support greater access to treatment, mental-health care and voluntary recovery communities combining shelter, practical skills, food growing, supportive relationships and responsibility.

Progress should be measured through unsheltered homelessness, housing placement and retention, treatment wait times, voluntary recovery participation, crisis calls, calls resolved without police, police backup rates, public-order incidents, responder safety and community feedback.

Relevant platform: Community Safety and Policing, Immediate Food Access, Preventing Homelessness and Voluntary Recovery.

6. Development charges and economic growth

Yes, I support reviewing Owen Sound’s development charges. These charges are only one part of construction costs, so a general reduction would rarely turn an expensive condominium or townhouse into a home an underhoused resident can afford.

Owen Sound already has residentially zoned land standing undeveloped. Some condominium and townhouse proposals remain stalled because too few local households can afford their units. I would work with landowners and builders to adapt these sites using the lower-cost housing forms and construction methods in my affordable-housing plan. Homes matching local incomes could allow these developments to proceed.

I support targeted development-charge reductions for genuinely affordable projects. To qualify, the proposed prices or rents should be affordable to underhoused Owen Sound residents and remain within a reasonable margin of independently verified construction, financing, servicing, operating and maintenance costs. The agreement would specify the initial price or rent, the affordability period, allowable increases and how compliance would be verified. A sale, resale or rent above the agreed limit during that period would make the incentive repayable to the City. Higher-priced developments would continue paying regular charges and fees.

I have spoken with several families whose adult children remain at home or have moved far away because they cannot afford housing here. Owen Sound has many families raising children, so much of our potential future population is already growing up here.

Our strongest population-growth opportunity is to give those young people a realistic chance to remain, form households, raise families and work locally. Affordable housing would also activate idle land, help employers retain workers and create local construction and manufacturing work.

For commercial investment, I would publish clear approval requirements and timelines, assign one municipal contact to each major proposal, maintain an accessible inventory of serviced commercial and industrial sites, and use local procurement and import replacement to strengthen demand for local firms. These measures would make Owen Sound a more predictable place to invest, build a business and raise a family.

Relevant platform: Urban Affordable Development, Affordable Rural Communities and Participation and Local Capacity.

7. The true cost of municipal services

Yes, I support allocating administration, human resources, payroll, facilities, information technology, insurance and other shared costs to the services that use them. The allocation method should be documented and applied consistently, using measures such as staff time, floor area, transactions, equipment use or another relevant cost driver.

Residents and Council should see both the fully allocated cost and the direct or controllable cost of each service. They should also see how much is covered by taxes, user fees, grants or partner contributions. Showing both views helps Council identify genuine efficiencies while understanding which costs would remain if a service changed.

This information should inform cost-sharing arrangements with the Library and other agencies. Negotiations should use actual service populations, usage, shared facilities, staff support and other documented benefits. Each agreement should clearly disclose the total cost, each party’s contribution, the services residents receive and the basis used to divide the cost.

The City’s Service Review already called for improved internal cost allocation. I would complete that work and make the resulting service-cost information part of the annual public budget.

Relevant platform: Complete Service-Level Financial Disclosure and Lower Property Taxes Through Better Government.

8. Water and wastewater costs

Yes, water and wastewater services should present Council with a complete annual explanation for proposed rate increases. Although these systems are funded through user charges, residents experience water bills, property taxes and other municipal charges as one household budget.

The annual presentation should show operating costs, staffing, electricity and materials, contracts, internal administrative allocations, debt payments, planned capital work, asset condition, reserve levels, water consumption assumptions and the effect on a typical household. Proposed increases should identify how much supports current operations, infrastructure renewal, debt and reserves.

Water and wastewater should participate in the same zero-based and efficiency reviews as every other department while meeting drinking-water, environmental and workplace-safety requirements. Opportunities include reducing leakage and stormwater infiltration, improving energy and purchasing efficiency, tracing industrial or solvent contamination to its source, and recovering costs from identifiable polluters.

Staff retain responsibility for safe technical operation and professional advice. Council approves the rates and bears full public accountability for the resulting charges. Every member of Council should therefore understand and be prepared to explain each increase.

Relevant platform: Wastewater Infrastructure and Ratepayer Protection and Complete Service-Level Financial Disclosure.

Closing

My approach across all eight areas is consistent: publish the real costs, establish measurable results, give residents a meaningful role, protect essential services and direct municipal support toward outcomes that improve life for ordinary Owen Sound households.