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HomeMy WebLinkAbout12/01/2014 Council Inaugural MeetingFIRST MEETING OF THE 2014 -2018 COUNCIL OF CLARINGTON December 1, 2014 7:00 p.m. MUNICIPALITY OF CLARINGTON [11.1 C 11, .1, f ( "' X201$1 - �01 3 MAYOR Adrian Foster REGIONAL COUNCILLORS Joe Neal (Wards i & 2) Willie Woo (Wards 3 & 4) LOCAL COUNCILLORS Steven Cooke (Ward 1 ) Ron Hooper (Ward 2) Corinna Traill (Ward 3) Wendy Partner (Ward 4) MEETING CALLED -10 ORDER O'CANADA INVOCATION SWEARING IN CEREMONY REMARKS INAUGURAL ADDRESS Anne Greentree Municipal Clerk St. Joseph's Elementary French Immersion School Choir Reverend Deb Foster Anne Greentree Municipal Cleric Erin O'Toole MP Durham Granville Anderson MPP Durham His Worship Mayor Adrian Foster By -Law 2014 -119 being a by -law to confirm the proceedings of the Council of the Municipality of Clarington at this meeting held on the 1st day of December, 2014. ADJOURNMENT A reception will be held following the meeting - please stay and meet your Members of Council c� �1iie�m lc��v+Y+ THE CORPORATION OF THE MUNICIPALITY OF CLARINGTON Municipal Administrative Centre, 40 Temperance Street Bowmanville, ON Ll C 3A6 www.clearington.net Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us this evening for the inaugural session of the 2014 to 2018 term of Clarington Council. It is an honour, for all of us to be here. It is a privilege to represent you, the electors who granted us this term in council and it's also a privilege to serve with the dedicated and talented group of people that we refer to as ... our staff. When the sun rises on the Greater Toronto Area, its warming rays touch us first, and, so it seems only appropriate to introduce your 2014 — 2018 Clarington Council, starting from the east. Councillor Wendy Partner, returning as the local councillor for Ward 4 Councillor Corinna Traill, returning as the local councillor for Ward 3 Councillor Willie Woo, returning as the regional councilor for Wards 3 and 4 Councillor Ron Hooper, returning as the local councilor for Ward 2 Councillor Steven Cooke, newly elected as the local councilor for Ward 1 And Councillor Joe Neal, former local councillor for Ward 1 and newly elected as the Regional Councillor for Wards 1 and 2 Councillors, congratulations on your election. I look forward to hearing from you, to learning from you and mostly to working together with you for the betterment of our great community. Councillors, would you rise? Ladies and Gentlemen, your council. As individual councillors, we bring together different backgrounds, different knowledge, different life experience. We live in different areas of a geographically large and diverse community and we often speak with, and listen, to, different sets of people. Yet, we form one Council. Passion for our community and strong views on issues confronting our community have driven us as individuals to run for elected office, but we can't forget that Clarington Council, the Council elected by all of Clarington and for all of Clarington, has at the end of the day, one collective voice and one collective vision. Council, independent of us as individuals, will have its own way of doing things, it will have its own character and it will have its own personality. I hope, that working with Clarington's staff and all of our partners, we shape Council's character and personality into one that is inclusive, progressive and respectful. I would hope that this council will reflects and focusses on the mission, vision and strategic plan that we all, and I hope all, will be working on in the upcoming weeks. As we embark on this new term it's important to remember who we are and it's important to consider where we are going. We view ourselves as small, which is understandable as we are nestled against the 5 #h largest metropolis in Forth America, and yet, population -wise we are the 28th largest municipality in Ontario. We're big. And we're growing. Former Mayor John Mutton has joined us this evening, and we welcome him. When he made his speech, from this chair, in 2000, the population of Clarington was 68,000. Fourteen years later, we now have close to 90,000 residents and before the end of this term of Council, we will most likely surpass 100,000 residents. We're massive geographically as well. If you put Pickering, Ajax, Whitby and Oshawa together you'd still have enough room to fit in Victoria BC before matching the expanse of our municipality. And yet, despite our size and complexity, we are still very much a unique collection of small..or at least smaller towns and the benefits that come from that. Several years ago, Dr. Gary Polonsky challenged me to consider how we might build a community that doesn't look like every other community in Ontario, or North America for that matter. He rightfully suggested that if we parachuted blindfolded into a subdivision, we'd have a very hard time distinguishing which town we were in. I've carried that observation with me for several years and then it occurred to me. Maybe we missed the forest for the trees. It's not about bricks and mortar or streams and valleys. It's about how we live our lives in our community. I have been bitten by a local lion, a very small one to be sure, and have played with tigers, zebras and wolves. Again, all very small, but the memories are big. I have been head- butted by a bison, have had an elephant sneak up on me and have had a camel consider snacking on my jacket. I've been in a creek surrounded by hundreds of 10 kilo salmon and can find a similar creek just east of here. I've canoed and tented in a provincial campground, have watched world class racing events and have tried, unsuccessfully, to drive like a pro on one North America's most storied racing tracks. i can buy the world's best apple cider doughnuts in a mill that's almost 170 years old and drive 15 minutes down the road and visit a nuclear power plant that gives Ontario 20% of its electricity needs. I've lounged at the beach, downhill skied, cross country skied, and mountain biked. If it didn't hurt so much, I'd go horseback riding. I've gone into fields to pick apples, strawberries and pumpkins and have enjoyed a gourmet dinner in the middle of a cornfield. And I've done all of this minutes from this building, in our community, in Clarington. Where else, can you do all this, minutes from your front door. We live in a great community. This is what Clarington is, this is who we are. This is what we must protect even while we encourage growth and look to reap the benefit from that growth. And so we will have challenges. We will need to plan to accommodate the growth that comes from 10,000 new residents as well as the thousands of workers that will be building the 407, doing the refurbishment at Darlington and undertaking the tasks in Port Granby. This necessitates working more effectively with Queen's Park on the transit file. And we need to do this bearing in mind the messages that you, the residents of Clarington, have so often told us. Protect our valuable agricultural resources, protect our green space and maintain the individuality and small town feeling in our settlement areas. Demographics tell us that there will be a surge in the need for services for our older adults, demographics also tell us that there is a mini baby boom coming, and we need also to plan for the needs of more young families as well. If you have heard the expression, the sandwich generation, or are living that life, you'll understand. We have to figure out what a sustainable community looks like and how we better become one. Clarington's own Priority Green did some amazing work towards energy efficient housing, something that we can all be proud of. Too, there's the report by the Clarington Sustainable Advisory Committee, created in partnership with staff and insightful and committed residents. It gives us a wonderful start on how we need to move forward, environmentally as well as socially to fulfill a bright future. Our voice will better be heard at Queen's Park and in Ottawa. The electoral boundary changes may seem awkward at first, but there will be benefits in having two representatives and two voices at the Federal and Provincial governments. 1 look forward to continuing our work with MPP Anderson and MP O'Toole and I look forward to deepening relationships with and between those levels of government. We must work together, we must meet our challenges, we have to understand that rowing together, in the same boat, is the only way that we are going to make progress. To that end, I'll make a simple challenge. While it's too late for 2015, wouldn't it be nice, if in 2016, your MP, your MPP, your Mayor and Council, and your Trustees could greet you, together, at the same new year's levee? So, a message from the Mayor to our MPP and MP, if you can make it, we can provide the cookies, coffee and tea. Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in a great community with greater things yet to come. Working together, truly, together in a spirit of partnership and an understanding that we are all in this together, I believe we will accomplish so very much. If you take anything with you tonight, I hope it will be this quote from William Jennings Bryan. He said "Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice.. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved." Let's see what we can achieve over the next four years.