Five Barrie councillors will be recognized for time well spent at Monday’s city council meeting.
Mayor Jeff Lehman, Deputy-Mayor Barry Ward, also the Ward 4 councillor, and Couns. Mike McCann, Keenan Aylwin and Natalie Harris will be recognized for their various years of service on council.
“I guess I’m kind of wishing my years of service were being honoured in four years, rather than this Monday, but I’ll take it,” said Ward, who placed second to Alex Nuttall in the Oct. 24 election of Barrie’s next mayor. “Who doesn’t like hearing nice things said about them? I usually don’t like being the centre of attention but I’ll be sharing it with four other people on Monday so that’s OK.”
Ward was on council for 22 years, while Lehman has served 16 years — four as Ward 2 or downtown councillor and 12 as mayor. He did not seek re-election in the Oct. 24 vote. Aylwin served four years as Ward 2 councillor as did Harris in Ward 6; neither ran for re-election.
Lehman said the response from his constituents means a great deal to him.
“Well, I serve the people, so the Mainstreet poll a few weeks ago that showed 79 per cent of residents polled believe I’m doing a good job means a lot to me, and I believe maintaining the support and confidence of my residents for 12 years is an accomplishment I’m proud of,” he said.
“I don’t think my legacy is in the buildings built or awards won…it’s in how our community has changed for the better,” Lehman said. “It’s been the honour of a lifetime to get to lead some of that change, but all of these things were accomplished by many people, and it’s just been a huge honour to have a part in it.”
McCann, who was Ward 10 councillor for eight years, also ran for mayor and finished fourth behind Nuttall, Ward, and Gerry Marshall.
“I have mixed feelings about being recognized on Monday for my eight years of service,” McCann said. “I feel that I have left everything on the field during the election, but I still have much to offer our city.
“I first entered Barrie politics to prove something to myself, my Dad and other family members,” he said. “I wanted a challenge in an area I had never been in, politics. During my second term the external motivation was gone and I purely felt a responsibility to our community as a returning councillor.
“I was focused on having council spending our city’s money wisely in areas that would have the biggest positive impact on the people of Barrie,” McCann said.
Harris said being a Barrie councillor for four years allowed her to help those often thought to be outside the city’s scope.
“Being a city councillor allowed me the opportunity to learn more about the opioid and mental health crisis,” she said, “and to share the important lived-experiences of individuals who battle with addiction, mental illness and who are either precariously housed, or unhoused when they felt that they didn't have a voice with respect to politics and policies created by the city - even politics and policies which directly impacted them.
“Even after my term, I will continue to work with the marginalized community and advocate for things such as safe supply and more addiction recovery services,” Harris said. “I will still help people who feel they've been silenced share their voice and remind them just how important they are.”.
Aylwin said he has mixed feelings about this term of council coming to an end.
“On the one hand, I’m looking forward to finding ways to work in the community for much-needed political changes that are more sustainable and bring a greater sense of community and connectedness,” he said. “On the other hand, I’m feeling worried and concerned for the people in our community who will be harmed by the policies of a new council that has shifted further to the right.
“We need people to stand up and realize the collective power we have outside of electoral politics to demand change and shift the idea of what’s possible.”
BarrieToday asked each of the outgoing councillors what they considered their most significant accomplishments while in office.
“I’ve said it many times that my proudest accomplishment during my time on council was successfully pushing for a tough bylaw against smoking in public places, including restaurants,” Ward said. “We take it for granted now but no-smoking bylaws were anything but at the time. Barrie was one of the leaders that brought about change at a provincial level.
“Without exaggeration, I think we saved lives with that bylaw,” he said of the bylaw, passed in the 2000-2003 term. “You don’t get to say that very often.”
Ward also mentioned something very fundamental to city services.
“I’d also have to point out my consistent efforts at council to highlight the rights of pedestrians and the importance of sidewalks,” he said. “I’d like to think I played a role in trying to put those who walk on an equal footing with those that drive and ensuring sidewalks are a key part of every new subdivision.”
Lehman said that reaching his goals was significant while serving on council those 16 years.
“I think that making Barrie less of a bedroom community by helping create more local jobs and a stronger local economy was my promise when I started and the numbers show we’ve accomplished that,” he said. “Driving around our south-end business parks and industrial areas, and seeing new programs and technology at Georgian College and in leading-edge companies, you can see evidence of how our city has changed for the better.
“I think I’m most proud of how we modernized the city over the last 10 years. We became a municipality that won awards for innovation, and we used innovative ideas to make people’s lives better…whether that was free day camps and rec programs for low-income households through RecAccess, or reducing pollution into the Lake (Simcoe) and the landfill, or building the first supportive housing to fight homelessness, or new policing partnerships to become the safest, lowest-crime city in the country,” Lehman said.
“The common thread was ‘doing things differently’, not being afraid to experiment, to partner with the community and always try to see things from our residents’ perspective, not just city hall’s.”
Aylwin served just one term on council but said he helped get things done that matter.
“I’m proud of the growing progressive movement in Barrie that, over the last four years, has exerted political pressure, engaged people in our local democracy and fought for a different vision of what our city could become,” he said. “For too long, it has felt like Barrie is an old- school city, run by the old-boys club, and will never change.
“I think we’ve demonstrated over the past four years that this isn’t a given,” Aylwin said. “Better is possible, but we have to fight for it.”
Harris said her most significant accomplishment on council is the facilitation, with the help of many, of Cornerstone to Recovery coming to Barrie to operate a women's addiction residential centre.
McCann noted his involvement in getting Maple Ridge Secondary School approved after council and the school board clashed about its location on the Prince William Way property, and that it was a confidence builder. As was helping find savings for the Barrie-Simcoe Emergency Services Campus and by voting to ban tents and barbecues at city beaches, while raising parking fees, to give Barrie residents their beaches back.
“One of the best days I experienced every year at council was when the winners of the Love Barrie and Win competition for all elementary schools got to be recognized,” he said. “Seeing their excitement and witnessing the family members’ pride for their kids was priceless. I will never forget what joy I got out of those days. This is what inspired me to bring the Love Barrie (landmark) sign (at Heritage Park) by raising private money that was donated to the public for all to enjoy.”
But what was his most significant accomplishment while on council?
“I would have to say it was all the relationships that were created,” McCann said. “I have made so many friends in politics, business, sports, church, community, within Barrie and globally.”
Barrie’s next council will certainly have a different, while familiar, look.
Robert Thomson in Ward 5 and Gary Harvey in Ward 7 were both acclaimed. Clare Riepma in Ward 1, Ann-Marie Kungl in Ward 3, Jim Harris in Ward 8 and Sergio Morales in Ward 9 were all re-elected. The new councillors are Craig Nixon in Ward 2, Amy Courser in Ward 4, Nigussie Nigussie in Ward 6 and Bryn Hamilton in Ward 10.
All ward councillors and Nuttall will be sworn in Nov. 16 for the 2022-2026 term of office.
