Heather Wright/The Independent

It’s a question municipal councillors likely hear a lot; what are you going to do to lower my taxes.

It was one of the questions at the All-Candidates Night for the 12 Petrolia council candidates Oct. 15 at Victoria Hall.

All 12 candidates, Ethan Brown, Bill Clark, Miranda Cole, Chad Hyatt, John McDonald, Marty Souch, Paul Stilwell, Dawn Stilwell, Greg Nemcek, Liz Welsh, Nicole Ramsay and Richard Poore, were on hand for the event organized by Mike and Ann Bourque.

They opened the night with questions composed by current Mayor Brad Loosely and incoming mayor, Joel Field, and read by moderator Les Whiting.

“I’m not sure I want to tackle it,” Clark joked. “For the last four years, we’ve kept the taxes in Petrolia under three per cent – three per cent in 2023, one-and-a-half percent in 2024, three per cent in 2025, and two per cent in 2026. So the increases that we’re seeing are the lowest in the county. Municipalities around us are coming in at 5-6-8, percent. We need to continue to collect some tax revenue to keep our infrastructure current,” he added.

“When we sit down to do your budget, we really like to not have to raise it at all, said Welsh. “But the reality is that the price goes up on everything and people want services and we do our very best to provide those services at a reasonable cost to our residents.”

First-time candidates John McDonald says the next council will have to look carefully at the numbers. “I’m sure all of the councillors can agree that what you’re looking at the budget, looking for waste in the budget is key to keeping the tax base low; making sure that no money is being spent that’s not accounted for, and everything that is being spent is worthwhile to the community.”

Incumbent Chad Hyatt said council set up a special fund to try to keep tax increases under control.

“We established a new operating reserve where …the surplus from the previous year can be helped used to reduce the tax rate in the following year,” he said.

While many people want to keep taxes low, Cole pointed out “sometimes we forget how many services that the Town of Petrolia offers, and when I sit down to think what we actually do offer, I think our even our small tax increase yearly can be justified.

“I think at the end of the day, if we can just educate people of our town and just remind them that look, we have these services available and where their money is going, I think people are more receptive to understanding why maybe we have small tax increases once a year,” she said.

The candidates also talked about the managing the residential subdivisions coming to the community when they were asked about the most pressing issues in the community.

“I come from a business background,” said Paul Stilwell. “I come from a technology background. Both of those are going to be important as we move the town forward.”

Dawn Stilwell added; “As our community grows, we need to consider how the decisions of council will affect the services people rely on, how it will affect our infrastructure,” she said.

Ethan Brown thinks dealing with recreational needs, including the desire for more ice time is important for council to address soon.

“I think we need to come up with a true resolution to that issue to reconcile some of the competing demands we’ve been seeing and and trying to find a path forward that works for all parties involved and doing what we can to plan ahead for what our community is actually needing for recreation,” he said.

Souch agreed. “People are talking about our Greenwood Recreation Centre, what we are going to do with it, how we’re going to attack it, and it needs to start today…we need to to try our best to get our neighbours on board to work with us,” South said.

Poore believes the town needs to prepare for the coming increase in OPP costs, pegged at 11 per cent. “We’re going to have to find really efficient ways to try and figure out how we negotiate that and how we adapt the rest of the budget to meet that very important but expensive need,” he said.

Ramsay says council should make small meaningful changes to the community, saying something as simple as a sidewalk can be important.

First time candidate Greg Nemcek said managing growth while keeping the small-town feel of Petrolia will be one of the most important issues for the next council. “it’s kind of scary sometimes when we’re talking about all these housing coming in that we have to make sure we don’t lose that.”