Grossi, Waddington election victories challenge status quo in Georgina

Yorkregion.com
October 25, 2018
Heidi Riedner

Voters handed Mayor Margaret Quirk a second term along with four returning incumbent councillors, but it won’t exactly be status quo in Georgina, with a couple of ‘new’ faces being elected Monday.

Honoured to be given a second term garnering 5,391 votes, Quirk said she looked forward to working together and moving the previous term of council’s mandate forward.

Both regional councillor/deputy mayor-elect Rob Grossi and Ward 1 councillor-elect Mike Waddington, however, ran on platforms that countered the town’s current course when it comes to a number of key mandates.

That includes scaling back controversial MURC and Civic Centre projects totalling a combined $60 million.

Waddington believes a new fire hall in the south end of Keswick should be the priority, with a full build-out of the MURC better done in stages that more adequately reflects the economic realities and recreational needs of residents.

A second Keswick library location proposed for the MURC less than a couple of kilometres from the current site and its projected $500,000 annual operating costs don’t make economic sense to Grossi.

Nor does a new $25-35 million Civic Centre when decentralized community hubs may be more suitable and economically feasible.

Possible changes, delays or reassessments for facility plans in the queue are just some of the discussions Grossi said he wants to take place around the municipal council table moving forward.

So are addressing town expenditures, since the issue of affordability in relation to them and taxes in general was the number 1 concern Grossi said he heard from residents on the campaign trail.

Solutions to ongoing controversial environmental issues such as the Maple Lake Estates development slated for the North Gwillimbury Forest and the Upper York Sewage Solution (UYSS) are also one of Grossi’s priorities.

As regional councillor, Grossi said he plans on not only getting Georgina’s fair share when it comes to the region’s $3-billion budget, but also put potential regional chair candidates and his fellow councillors on notice when it comes to the proposed sewage treatment plant that will dump 40 million litres of treated waste into Lake Simcoe via the Holland River per day to accommodate growth in East Gwillimbury, Newmarket and parts of Aurora.

“I’m not a passive kind of guy. You can bet that I am going to want those individuals to guarantee to me that they will be opposing the Upper York Sewage Solution,” Grossi said.

Honoured to be “given a seat that my late friend Danny Wheeler sat in,” the 20-year political veteran and five-time mayor said Monday’s election was the most “invigorating campaign of my life.”

A tired, thrilled and excited Waddington said the election campaign has been an amazing journey and he is forever grateful for everyone who walked it with him for the past few months.

He said he looks forward to rolling up his sleeves and getting to work for the betterment of Ward 1 and Georgina as a whole.

He added his priorities will align heavily with the concerns that were shared with him throughout the campaign; the vast majority of which were in regards to public safety.

"The wide range of these concerns were heavily dependent on where in the ward the person was from and included break and enters, speeding, dangerous intersections, crosswalks, damaged equipment in parks and poor lighting in public spaces."

Beyond that, Waddington said the general cost of living is getting to a point where some people are worried that if property taxes continue to rise at the current pace, they'll be forced to move.

"That's unacceptable to me."

Waddington said the town also needs a new mindset when it comes to business.

“Instead of telling business why they can’t do something, we need to get on board and help them reach their goals,” he said, adding, Georgina needs to stop competing with the private sector in the marketplace.

Both Waddington and Grossi propose a shift to a more proactive, aggressive approach to the town’s current course when it comes to economic development, communication, marketing, approaching private/public partnerships and ultimately boosting commercial and industrial investment in Georgina to offset the tax burden on homeowners.

In a hard-fought election that garnered a second term for Quirk, a return to politics for Grossi and an almost 13 per cent drop in voter turnout, incumbent Frank Sebo retained his Ward 4 seat despite a strong challenge from first-time Wayne Phillips in a three-way race that also included Greta Zinck.

On average, voter turnout for the past three elections in Georgina has run between 32 and 36 per cent, depending on the ward.

Voter turnout for this year’s election in Georgina was 26.73 per cent, down from 39.6 per cent in 2014.

The number of ballots cast was 9,047 out of 33,100 eligible voters.

That is down from 12,276 in 2014.

There were 10,521 ballots cast in the 2010 election