Heated Mayors Debate in Woodstock

Things got testy at times during the Mayors Debate this morning in the City of Woodstock.

WOODSTOCK - Things got heated at times at the Mayor's debate in Woodstock this morning. 

Current councillor and candidate Shawn Shapton often questioned incumbent Mayor Trevor Birtch's leadership. Birtch responded by saying he is the only candidate who understands how government works and he is more qualified to for the job. 

Birtch says his opponents negative campaign is the reason why a lot of good people stay out of politics. 

"My opponent does not quite understand what the role of the Mayor for the City of Woodstock is, his eyes have been closed to all of prosperity and all of the great things that amazing people have been accomplishing over the past 4 years, both at the City and at the County and that's unfortunate. Rather than trying to understand issues completely, instead he continues to make attacks, he continues to say more needs to be done. He also brings in partisan politics and speaks of relationships of the previous government. The office of Mayor works with our provincial government, our Federal government, no matter what political party is elected. Unfortunately when you come at things from a negative perspective, you are not going to accomplish great things for the City. This is the Friendly City and people enjoy a good clean fight in an election." 

Shapton says he wanted the public to know that our Mayor has not been a good leader over the past 4 years and focused more on himself, then the team of council.

"I think in any election you have to state how you are going to do things different or better and pointing out key differences between our current Mayor's style and myself is absolutely the biggest part of this election. I need to assure the people of Woodstock that what we currently have, won't be what we have with me as the Mayor of Woodstock." 

One surprise of the debate was when Shapton insinuated that Mayor Birtch cost the City of Woodstock a major business development by going to the press to early, referring to a CTV story that 1,000 jobs were coming to Woodstock. Shapton says this was a case of a politician over promising and under delivering.

"The CTV news article that stated 1,000 jobs were coming to Woodstock and shovels were in the ground, simply did not happen. Unfortunately none of council was aware of that CTV news clip that was going to come out and it was an unfortunate piece. At the end of the day a lot of those discussions did happen behind closed doors, I can say that there were certainly emails that floated around about how that was going to impact that deal and unfortunately we have not heard from that company again." 

Shapton said if elected one of his first calls would be to that company to let them know that we will not have a leaky ship with him as mayor. Birtch says Shapton's comments were completely inappropriate. 

"We have had unprecedented growth and prosperity here and we have over 2300 new jobs that have come during this term of council and we have may irons in the fire and the next council needs to look at getting pipes in the ground as soon as possible in those new lands that came into our boundary through Norwich Township. There is going to be so many more opportunities and I am not sure how he can state that there has been missed opportunities." 

Both candidates were given an opportunity to talk about some of their greatest accomplishments over the past 4 years. Shapton pointed to a couple of things that stand out for him. 

"It was working with our youth, with our school boards and our MPP to finally find some help with regards to our youth suicide crisis that we were experiencing, that is something that I went into the trenches for, I sat in meetings and battled hard just to get a public meeting so people knew what mental health resources were available for our community. Probably the biggest success for myself in the past term was just dealing with constituents on a day to day basis and irregardless if we agree or disagree, I will always answer the phone and I will always return an email because that is what we do, that is what we were elected to do." 

Birtch says his biggest accomplishment is the work he has done in repairing the City's relationship with our neighbours. 

"We have improved our relationships with our neighbours, for many years Mayors have tried to complete a boundary adjustment with Norwich and have never been able to sit down at the table, for many years Mayors and our County councillors have tried to have a funding formula in place for the court security costs that are paid for by our Woodstock forces and our city taxes and we have successfully accomplished that. We have so many new opportunities because of this improved relationship, this improved mind set that we can get more done by working positively together and being an advocate for our neighbours and friends." 

The debate featured more questions on zero waste, downtown revitalization, economic development, taxes and residential growth. One bone of contention between the two was when Birtch says taxes have actually gone down 3 out of the 4 years during his term as Mayor. One thing both candidates agree on is that Woodstock needs to have weekly recycling. 

Advance voting opens tomorrow in the City of Woodstock with election day happening on the 22nd. 

Heart FM's Chris McMillan live tweeted the debate which was also filmed on Rogers TV. You can follow Chris McMillan's timeline here or at his handle @ChrisMcMillan29.