Interview with Mayor Jerry Acchione - Monday December 11th

Monday, 11 December 2023 11:14

Mayor Jerry Acchione is back from Japan and he has a busy week of meetings ahead of him, including this Thursday's City Council meeting with the 2024 Capital Budget approval on the agenda.

WOODSTOCK - The Mayor of Woodstock has returned to the Friendly City.

Jerry Acchione spent the past couple of weeks in Japan, with the Southwestern Ontario Marketing Alliance.

He spent a week in Tokyo and a week in Nagoya. Acchione participated in 13 meetings during his trip, but he was able to do a little bit of sightseeing.

"Vuteq was fantastic! They actually took us to a town called Kyoto and it was beautiful. They wanted to take us out and take a look around the area. That was a neat experience because this was a really busy trip, so I got to see a little bit of Japan at least!"

He was also able to visit Niko during his trip.

Acchione was part of the Woodstock delegation and they were joined by delegations from Tillsonburg, Ingersoll, Stratford, and Perth County.

Now that he's back from overseas, Acchione has a busy week ahead of him with a City Planning Meeting, an Oxford County Council meeting, and a Woodstock City Council meeting on his schedule.

The proposed Capital Budget for 2024 will be up for approval during this Thursday's City Council meeting, and Acchione says it could be updated one last time before it's approved by council.

"Councillor Lauder is proposing making a little bit of change to it, so I am interested to see how that goes. Taking out a fairly major investment to the downtown, trying to keep the businesses and everybody open, and maybe concentrating towards Museum Square."

You can find the list of proposed changes on page 207 of the agenda online here.

The proposed Capital Budget was $37,799,000 when it was first presented to council on November 16th, but two special budget meetings have happened since then.

This Thursday's meeting will begin at 7:00 p.m. and it will be livestreamed on the City of Woodstock YouTube page.

You can listen to our full interview with Mayor Jerry Acchione below: