Mayor's Debate

Now Playing

Mayor's Debate

Thursday, 16 October 2014 14:40

Woodstock Chamber of Commerce hosted a mayor only debate Thursday morning

WOODSTOCK - When it comes to public transit, Trevor Birtch says the City needs to start buses earlier and run them later.

The comments came this morning at the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce Mayoral Debate.

Birtch says routes also need to be adjusted in order to get more bodies on the bus.

"We've continued to do studies time and time again and we have seen no improvement to the transit that will help get people to their jobs, help get people and families to their appointments and special events. That's why I ride the buses, to hear what people have to say. You can sense that it's needed. People would give us that extra car and ride the bus."

Pat Sobeski said while the city is doing a study looking at additional bus routes, it would cost $275,000 to run an extra bus line.

Many topics were covered at the debate including the time it takes to process a building permit which some claim can take 3-6 weeks.

Sobeski said that if you fill out your paperwork correctly, it should take a maximum of ten days to get a building permit.

He went on to say mayors and councils need to realize what is governance and what is operational and need to know there is already a scheduling model in place for building permits.

"With that first question about timing of building permits, if indeed there were problems that they weren't meeting it, that's where the governance has to come in and say 'what corrective actions are you taking' or 'what do we have to change in our bylaws so that our customers are happy.'"

Michael Harding says the city needs to do a better job at letting people know about their scheduling model if in fact they have one while Birtch mentioned City staff should be empowered to sit down with people and help them fill out their permits so there aren't errors that take extra time to complete.

When the focus turned to traffic flow, Harding says the backup of traffic on Juliana Drive in the City is a simple fix and he is a supporter of syncing up the traffic lights as well as working with the County to establish a truck route through town.

Birtch was against the syncing of lights in the downtown saying drivers need to come to stops so they can look into store fronts and see what is in the downtown shops.

Sobeski said that if you caused longer delays in the lights at Juliana then it would back up traffic north and south which would then cause lineups on the Highway 401 overpass which the Ministry of Transportation would not like.

Harding also noted that taxation continues to be a big issue for business owners in Woodstock.

"I worked very hard to get rid of the large industrial class during my first term at the County because that's one of the levers that we have got to pay attention to and by the way, that's the only tax company's have to pay. They might get forgiven at the Federal level, they might get forgiven at the Provincial level but apparently the city of Woodstock and other municipalities -- they never forgive."

Harding says the middle class is living paycheck to paycheck and the council needs to remind themselves that people don't have a lot of extra money when budget time comes.