Chatham-Kent’s mayor-elect is hoping to change the public perception of council and its decisions over the next four years.
Michael Bondy was elected mayor in last week’s municipal election, ousting incumbent Darrin Canniff, who had been the mayor for the previous eight years.
The 16-year veteran of Chatham-Kent council feels that public input needs to be in the forefront of decisions made by council going forward.
“I don’t feel we’ve engaged the public in our big projects,” he told the Sun last week. “We don’t tell them what we’re thinking of doing, we tell them what we’ve already done. I want to change that.”
One of those big projects was the recent controversial decision on the downtown Community Hub. Bondy says he initially voted in support of the Hub, but his mind changed once he heard the overwhelming opposition from the public.
“But then, we went ahead and approved it,” he says.
Bondy also believes the municipality has to get back to treating itself as a business and needs to restructure the corporation. As a long-time small business owner, he’s used to looking for savings wherever he could get them.
He says a review of some departments within administration were overdue.
“I think we need some changes,” he said. “Should we have these departments? And why are there so many people in them?”
One of the things on everyone’s mind is a new arena and Bondy adds that it needs to be decided with public consultation.
In fact, he’d like to see what he calls mini-councils in each ward, made up of members of the public.
As for the folks in Wheatley, Bondy says he’s always been a big fan of the village and visits there often during the summer months.
“I completely understand how they feel. It’s the same with Bothwell,” he says. “Opposite corners of the municipality but they both feel they’ve been left out of a lot of things going on in such a large municipality.”
He cites spending the last four years of semi-retirement working on a horse ranch and that experience has brought him more in touch with the rural aspects of the municipality.
“I’ve learned a lot and I think that rural experience has helped me out,” he says.
In fact, he has asked that the mayoral inauguration be changed from the Capitol Theatre downtown to a place like Ridgetown College. He’s still awaiting an answer on that, but says it’s important to spread those things around the municipality.
Bondy is anxious to get going and says he’s looking forward to working with everyone going forward, and regaining some of the trust he feels has been lost with the public.
Bondy will take office on November 15.
