Working Together for a Stronger Community.

The question isn't simply growth or no growth. It's whether infrastructure, taxation, services, development charges, water, roads, and community facilities keep pace — and whether existing residents end up subsidizing poorly planned growth.

• Actively participate in the Township's Growth Management Strategy, upcoming Official Plan Review, current Environmental Assessment studies, Development Charge policies and any Zoning By-law updates — the actual documents that set the rules for where and how Cavan Monaghan grows.
• Get ahead of growth with long-term infrastructure and land-use planning, rather than reacting to it after approvals are already granted.
• Ensure roads, sidewalks, drainage, parks, and other services keep pace with development.
• Improve transportation and road planning across the township.
• Encourage local economic development and employment, so more people can work closer to home.
• Support a wider range of housing choices, including affordable housing, smaller homes and seniors' housing, so people can stay in Cavan Monaghan at every stage of life.
• Strengthen the connections between new development and community amenities, rather than treating them separately.
• Make growth pay its fair share — development should reduce the financial burden of growth on existing taxpayers, not add to it.
• Plan infrastructure alongside growth, consistent with the Township's Master Servicing Plan — roads, water, wastewater and parks sized for where development is actually happening.

I don't want rural Cavan Monaghan fighting urban Cavan Monaghan. I want us planning Cavan Monaghan together — different communities, one township.

Farmland, water, natural heritage, villages, and rural landscapes are economic and cultural assets — not vacant land waiting for development.

• Prioritize the protection of farmland, natural areas, water resources, and heritage in municipal planning and decision-making.
• Say no to annexation and insist that any discussion of municipal boundaries be grounded in current, public documentation — not assumption or rumour.
• Ensure new development contributes to the community rather than simply consuming land and infrastructure.
• Protect and develop employment lands in North Monaghan specifically, working with the Province and the City of Peterborough to keep them serving local commercial and industrial jobs rather than becoming targets for annexation.

Growth itself isn't the enemy; poorly planned growth is. Concentrating appropriate development where infrastructure and services can support it helps protect the rural areas around it.

Council isn't spending its own money. We're spending yours. I believe councillors have a responsibility to protect taxpayers' money, put the community ahead of personal interests, and think beyond the next election.

• Already underway: our own numbers show roughly 4.8 x in reserves for every resident against our long-term debt — nearly five dollars saved for every dollar owed — with existing debt payments using only about 13% of the Township's provincial borrowing capacity.
• Publish the full comparison — including growing neighbouring municipalities — and keep it updated every year, not just at election time.
• Make municipal decision-making more transparent and understandable, including costs and timelines for major projects; basically, how and where our money goes.
• Measure whether major municipal investments actually deliver value for taxpayers and report the honest results, whether positive or negative.
• Use the Township's own Asset Management Plan to guide capital decisions — it already shows an annual infrastructure funding gap, and closing that gap responsibly, on our own schedule, is exactly what strong reserves are for.

Before promising lower taxes, residents deserve to understand what's actually driving them: inflation, growth, and infrastructure replacement each play a role. The question Council can actually influence is efficiency, priorities, and whether growth is paying its own way.

I'm not anti-union, and I'm not anti-employee. I'm pro-good government. My concern isn't whether our employees are unionized — it's whether we have the right people, in the right roles, with clear expectations and the resources to do their jobs well, and I know we don’t.

• Ensure staffing decisions are grounded in a clear understanding of the work that needs to be done and its long-term cost — before positions are added.
• Apply a clear framework before filling any hard-to-recruit position — Make (hire permanently), Share (jointly employ specialists with neighbouring municipalities or the County), Buy (use a consultant only when the work is genuinely specialized or occasional), or Build (grow the expertise in-house by developing junior staff into the role) — instead of defaulting to expensive outside consultants.
• Account for the real cost of leaving a position vacant — overtime, consulting fees, recruitment, training, delays and lost institutional knowledge often add up to far more than the salary saved.
• Support workforce planning, with clear service levels, communication, and accountability for results, applied respectfully and consistently.
• Respect the distinction between Council setting direction and administration implementing it — while making sure Council has the information it needs to hold administration accountable.

The citizens of Cavan Monaghan don't always see themselves as one township — and when communication from the municipal office appears thin, that gap fills in with rumour, speculation, and mistrust. You can't legislate unity. You can build the habits that make it possible.

• Publish a plain-language Council recap within 72 hours of every meeting — what was decided, why, and what it means for residents in each of the three communities.
• Hold monthly, informal “Ask Your Councillor” sessions in rotating locations — with no agenda required.
• Correct misinformation quickly, specifically, and without contempt.
• Frame shared challenges as shared across the township, not ward-by-ward.
• Treat disagreement as normal, not as division — explaining the reasoning behind votes, including unpopular ones.
• Identify and fix the township's slowest resident-facing process within the first year, and guarantee a real person is reachable by phone or in person for anyone who needs one.
• Follow the Township's own Accountability and Transparency Policy — and hold Council to the standard it already claims to meet.

These commitments are testable. Residents will know within the first few months whether they're happening.

Cavan Monaghan is a lower-tier township within Peterborough County, beside a much larger City of Peterborough, beneath a provincial government making decisions that can profoundly affect our future. Peterborough isn't the enemy — the goal is collaboration without surrendering autonomy.

• Build productive working relationships with the County, neighbouring municipalities, and other levels of government.
• Push decisions down to the most local level capable of making them effectively, rather than accepting decisions made elsewhere by default.
• Ensure Council enters every negotiation with a clear, shared position — because a divided Council has no leverage with upper-tier government, and a divided township has no leverage with itself.

Challenge ideas without creating enemies. Conflict can be healthy — five councillors arguing hard about ideas. Polarization begins when disagreement becomes about identity. We don't need a council that thinks alike. We need a council that can think together.

• Separate claims from evidence rather than arguing about motives.
• Refuse the “us versus them” frame — rural versus village, taxpayers versus staff, longtime residents versus newcomers.
• Ask for specifics, every time, instead of accepting sweeping claims.
• Correct misinformation once, clearly, and move on.
• Take legitimate concerns seriously, separated from the loudest version of them.
• Keep the process boringly fair — publish information, disclose assumptions, apply the same rules to allies and critics alike.
• Build relationships across every part of the township before the contentious issues arrive.
• Welcome being challenged, and change position when the evidence warrants it — mentorship and alternative views make better decisions, not weaker ones.

Unified doesn't mean uniform. Once Council has debated an issue and decided, I believe we owe residents — and each other — the discipline to move forward together, especially when we're representing Cavan Monaghan beyond our own doors. The challenges ahead are too important for a council consumed by the conflicts behind us.

Ward 1 needs parks and recreation investment that keeps pace with growth and serves residents of every age.

• Implement the priorities of Vision 2035 — the Township's Parks and Recreation Strategic Plan — as funding and planning opportunities arise, including projects already underway like the Downtown Park and the CMCC remaining lands.
• Protect and enhance parks, trails and open spaces as the community grows.
• Expand and connect walking and cycling routes in Ward 1, building on the Township's existing trail network and its Trails Master Plan.
• Advocate for accessible, multi-generational recreation that serves children, families, seniors and residents of all abilities.

Good parks aren't a luxury for later. They're part of what makes growth feel like an addition to this community, not a subtraction from it.

Cavan Monaghan faces real infrastructure challenges. We have approximately 240 kilometres of municipal roads to maintain. But other rural municipalities face similar or even greater infrastructure burdens.

The question isn't whether we should invest. We must. The question is whether we're getting the best value from every tax dollar — and whether new growth is paying its fair share of the infrastructure it requires.

And growth is exactly why that question matters more, not less, right now. Cavan Monaghan isn't just a rural municipality with 240 kilometres of roads — it's a rural municipality entering a major growth phase, projected to add approximately 7,300 residents by 2051. Growth isn't the problem. Unplanned growth is. Handled well, that growth is an opportunity slower-growing municipalities don't have: a chance to grow the assessment base and improve the ratio of taxpayers to infrastructure at the same time, instead of asking the same residents to carry the same roads forever.

• Use the Township's Road Needs Study and Asset Management Plan to prioritize road investment by actual condition and safety risk, not by who complains loudest.
• On the numbers so far: Cavan Monaghan's 2024 audited transportation spending equalled about 29.8% of property tax revenue — well below comparable rural neighbours like Trent Lakes (45.9%) and Asphodel-Norwood (57.4%).
• Ensure new development pays its fair share of the road capacity it requires, rather than spreading that cost evenly across existing taxpayers.
• Keep residents informed about where the road levy actually goes and why.

Every kilometre of road is a kilometre someone has to pay to maintain. I want Council to plan that honestly, not quietly.