The council chambers here were packed Monday night for the inauguration of Wellington North’s 2010-2014 council.
In his address, Mayor Ray Tout thanked those attending to become part of Wellington North’s history.
“As the new council that you have elected has been sworn in, you will witness what I have been saying for the past seven months. It’s about working together, for change. It’s about working together to realize our potential as a community and to be able to show the rest of Ontario and Canada, that Wellington North is alive and ready to do business.”
Tout said “We need to ensure the delivery of cost effective and reliable key services that every resident of Wellington North, and every new resident depends on.”
He said that it is now the time “for our community to move forward and gain strength in the provincial economic sector so that we can encourage new and sustainable development and provide a reason that Wellington North is a great community to live, to work, and to raise a family for future generations.”
Tout encouraged constructive public participation so Wellington North can improve on things such as marketing its recreation facilities, bragging about its great parks, campgrounds, and golf courses as the municipality welcomes outside shoppers onto its main streets.
Tout added that it is about “promoting what we do have in Wellington North; not what we don’t have.”
He cited work ahead. “The budget is a process that we can take quite some time to go through. However, through the current debt repayments and projects to be finished I would like to see this process to be put into a more understandable format, so that when the taxpayer wants to provide input into the budget, it will hopefully become more of an easy read when we have to establish the new priorities for 2011.
He added, “I would like to see the declared priorities published, as well as the reasons decisions were taken, so that the lines of communication are more open.”
He also wanted to have a process where everyone could become more familiar with the work.
“I believe that we have a winning team here on council. They are full of energy, full of ideas, and ready to learn.”
While he considered it a huge learning curve, “With the support of positive staff and the knowledge of front line workers in the municipality I know that by working together and the ‘yes, we can attitude’ we can all succeed together.”
“Let’s look to the future,” Tout concluded.
