A little more than a year after the 2022 municipal election, BradfordToday reached out to the nine current members of council to ask them to reflect on their accomplishments and challenges so far, as well their priorities for the remainder of the term.
This is the second article in a five-part series that shares their responses. Today, they answer the following question: What would you say has been your greatest accomplishment as a group so far this term?
Mayor James Leduc
My proudest collective moment was earlier this spring when council and staff came together to set our strategic priorities for the 2022-26 term. This exercise was a big deal for us because it demonstrated that although as individuals we may have different ideas or areas of concern, at the end of the day, the priorities we established were a united decision and really important to all of council.
It was incredible to see council and staff work together to reach our five priorities: community safety and traffic congestion; infrastructure and major access roads; economic development; downtown and urban renewal; and enhanced recreation and leisure services/facilities.
Deputy Mayor Raj Sandhu
There are few but I would say the main one is strategic priorities adopted by council to set the vision for our town for the next four years and beyond.
- Moving ahead with our town hall to consolidate all of our staff under one roof to realize the efficiencies (financial and from a human resources point of view)
- Moving ahead with construction of the community hub, pending recommendation for the leisure centre grounds beside the library
- Adoption of the Leisure Services Master Plan
Ward 1 Coun. Cheraldean Duhaney
- I was able to bring the youths’ concerns about painting the basketball court at the Alan Kuzmich Park in Ward 1 and I was glad it was done
- Renaming of a park to recognize Const. Devon Northrup who lost his life on duty
- Implementing traffic mitigating solutions
Ward 2 Coun. Jonathan Scott
We’re most united in looking to improve our community infrastructure to better serve the public. That work includes everything from building new recreation amenities to upgrading old ones, along with our roads, transit and other capital projects.
A few examples:
- Resurfacing dozens of roads in the older sectors of town
- Working to upgrade arterial roads such as Middletown Road and Line 8
- The pending transformation of Holland Street
- Significantly upgrading older parks
- Building beautiful new parks
- Retrofitting the old Bradford Public School into a new community hub
- Planned significant upgrades at recreation facilities ranging from Bond Head’s old community hall to the Danube Seniors’ Leisure Centre
- Working to revitalize 125 Simcoe Rd. into a “Central Park”, civic hub, town hall and rec centre
Ward 3 Coun. Ben Verkaik
Developing a strategic plan and sticking with it. It is an ambitious plan, and it can’t all be done at once. We still need to prioritize while planning for the future, finding synergies, etc.
Ward 4 Coun. Joseph Giordano
The ability to know how smart and diverse the skill set is of each member and how it builds a highly effective and results-orientated council while working with the talented staff. I look forward to continued strong fiscal responsibility — while driving results our town actually needs in the immediate term and long term.
Ward 5 Coun. Peter Ferragine
Recently Council had endorsed an automated speed enforcement (ASE) program, which was our No. 1 strategic priority based on everything we heard at the door or have received complaints about. Our traffic and community safety committee has added 35 new community safety zones (CSZ) which council had endorsed to help us with the ASE program and getting more areas covered to help reduce the speeding in our community.
Being a board member of the Lake Simcoe Conservation Foundation, I'm extremely proud of the funds we have been able to raise to make our dream of a new education center at Scanlon Creek a reality.
Ward 6 Coun. Nickolas Harper
I would say our greatest accomplishments came from our strategic priorities and first budget. This increased the addition of 20 new firefighters, much needed salary upgrades for all staff, and brought extreme value to lacking services that either needed more support staff or created new roles to help bring services for seniors, the youth and all of the residents in Bradford West Gwillimbury.
Ward 7 Coun. Peter Dykie
Adapting to a changing landscape, working with a newly elected team from a wide spectrum of backgrounds and experiences. It is wonderful to see a seamless transition in this regard and the amount of open-mindedness and respect for each others viewpoints.
The third part of this series, which will be released tomorrow (Nov. 8), will answer this question: What would you say has been the greatest challenge so far?
If you missed the first part and want to see what each council members said was their greatest personal accomplishment so far this term, read it here.
