By Dan Jones, LJI
Northumberland 89.7 FM
David Stambrook said if elected Mayor of Port Hope, he will seek bureaucratic efficiencies, hard-cap tax increases at 2.5 percent annually, and help to prepare the municipality for the proposed Wesleyville nuclear facility.
Stambrook is not looking to cut critical services, like policing, emergency response, water and community services, which he believes people value. His online platform indicates a review of the $8.5 million in annual corporate overhead or meaningful efficiencies.
A Cobourg man is advocating for the municipality to participate in a provincial e-scooter pilot program. Mark Richardson says the three-year project would allow Cobourg to evaluate how e-scooters are used, and the information would help the province formulate a policy on speed, safety, and age. He notes that while there is a ban on e-scooters, enforcement seems nonexistent. Yet, these popular modes of transportation do not appear to be going away anytime soon. Adam Bureau and Nicole Beatty support the pilot program; Lucas Cleveland does not.
Christina Bergmann is the lone outside candidate seeking to become Brighton. Both Brian Ostrander and Bobbi Wright have municipal council experience. However, Bergmann says she sees room for growth in planning for commercial and residential development in the community, being transparent in how tax dollars are spent, creating an online portal for the public to track expenses, and boosting economic growth in the downtown area.
While her platform says she wants to avoid tax increases through responsible financial management, she concedes that zero percent tax increases will be impossible to avoid, given inflationary pressures on staff wages and the procurement of goods and services.
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