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Looking back on his first 100 days in office, Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall has begun to deliver on some of his six main campaign promises.
Nuttall, who is no stranger to politics, celebrated his first 100 days in office last week.
“One of the first things we did was we approved our strategic plan to create an affordable place to live, community safety, a thriving community, infrastructure, investment and responsible governance,” he said.
When he runs for mayor in 2022, Nuttall outlined his six main priorities: freeing up taxes, creating jobs for Barrie, providing affordable housing, eliminating prison drop-offs at bus terminals and creating a city where people can feel safe.
With this in mind, a major part of approving the strategic plan for 2023 included halting any increase in the city’s operating budget in order to invest more money to address roads and infrastructure issues. Included.
Looking forward to what will happen next, Nuttall said he is working to end inmate drop-offs at the downtown Barrie bus station.
“We are working with the province to ensure that inmates who are not local to our region and are being released from the Central North Correctional Center in Pentanghuishen are provided safe travel back to their home community, where they get the proper resources and support,” he said.
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Next year, the mayor also hopes to make some changes to the city’s tree replacement program. By implementing the program in-house versus using a local conservation authority, the city will save money overall while also being able to plant more trees, he said.
“This is a prime example of a place where we are able to do more, but it costs less, and a place where we have found efficiencies to really improve life and quality of life in the City of Barrie,” Nuttall Said.
The new mayor also mentioned that he is beginning to negotiate with local school boards to develop partnerships to use school facilities for after-hours programming.
Nuttall also spoke of his desire to build on the links started by previous councils to bring electric vehicle pilot projects to Barrie. This includes a pilot project to bring two battery-electric buses to Barrie Transit to reduce emissions.
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Nuttall, who also served as Member of Parliament for Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte from 2015 to 2019 and as Barrie’s Ward 10 councilor from 2006 to 2014, said it was a return to municipal politics.
“The lack of favoritism here and all the partnership that’s there, it’s been really cool. It’s refreshing when a bunch of people are able to get in the same room, maybe have a good idea of how the end result is going to be.” Have different views on but also agree on where to relocate the city,” Nuttall said.
“That collaborative, cooperative approach that we are seeing from all of the board members on council and of course from our public service, it is wonderful to see and be a part of.”
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