As Liz Welsh goes door-to-door in Petrolia she’s finding “most people are happy and content.”
Welsh, a councillor for the last 12 years, is running for mayor.
While the other candidates say people have been talking about the desire for change after the Nov. 2017 resignation of the former CAO under unusual circumstances, Welsh says as she travels door-to-door “not a lot of people have a lot of issues.”
Some of the elderly voters have voiced concern about the new internet voting system, she says, but can be reassured they will receive help.
“I’m really not seeing the concerns …most people seem to be quite happy and content.”
And Welsh says she’s simply not hearing at the doors that people are looking for the change other candidates are talking about.
“I would like to know what the people want a change from – just the people sitting on council – because I certainly wouldn’t want a change from the fact we brought in millions and millions of dollars for infrastructure or had more community events than we’ve ever had or that the arena is set for the next 25 years, we’re essentially saving our hospital, so I’m not really sure what people want a change from.”
One issue she does get questions about is the council decision to close the local composting site. Welsh has always been a strong advocate of composting and she’d like to see the issue revisited.
“We need to go through the items on the Ministry of the Environment’s list and we have to get hard numbers on what exactly were going to have to do,” she says.
If the municipality has to invest in leachate management, that will be a big ticket item, Welsh says. She adds council may have to spend money to review the issue.
“It’s probably going to cost to have it all examined, too.”
Welsh cautions it will take time to review the compost site issue and she says in the meantime council should ramp up the efforts to chip branches at the curbside and provide at-cost home composters.
And when the issue of releasing the report by John Fleming into the action of the former CAO is brought up, Welsh says the town has to follow the advise of its lawyers who say it is a personnel issue that can’t be released to the public. “Anybody with municipal experience or HR experience knows that can’t be made public.”
Welsh plans to focus her energies on improving the town’s infrastructure and continuing to provide support to Bluewater Health as it renovates CEEH by creating a healthy environment in the community for citizens.