Interview with Warden Marcus Ryan - April 11th 2024

Thursday, 11 April 2024 at 10:57

Warden Marcus Ryan will now appear on the Heart FM morning show on Thursday after the first Oxford County Council meeting of each month.

OXFORD COUNTY - Warden Marcus Ryan appeared on the Heart FM morning show for his first live interview with more to come.

He's going to start doing monthly interviews with Dan and Marcie on the day after the first council meeting of the month.

During their chat this morning, Warden Ryan talked about how the county is doing everything it can to address homelessness and affordable housing.

"County Council yesterday had two reports on how we are going to spend homelessness prevention funding from the province and also a report on how we are going to come up with a plan to have a pathway out of homelessness. For people already experiencing it, how do help them get out of that situation?"

County Council also attended a workshop after yesterday's meeting, all about homelessness and how it's being addressed.

Warden Ryan also talked about the County's 16.7 percent increase to the tax levy for 2024.

He said lots of municipalities also faced tax rate increases due to several factors including inflation and the need to address important matters such as homelessness and affordable housing. Warden said a lot of municipalities did their best to implement a tax levy increase under 10 percent, but he thinks they will have to continue to have higher tax rate increases in the years to come.

He doesn't think the County will have that problem.

"In Oxford, I think we tried to do it a different way in saying 'look if this is going to be our reality, let's bite this off and do this.' I think we are going to see a return to a much more normal tax increase in subsequent years."

During the interview this morning, Warden Ryan also discussed the following:

- Where he grew up and how he came to Oxford County.

- What made him want to get involved in local politics.

- Why the Thamesford water tower looks like it's leaking water sometimes.

- How the current taxation formula for housing needs to be changed and what's being done to change that.

You can listen to the full interview below: