City council sets priorities

City councillors have identified the areas they believe need to be worked on to move the city forward and have also identified Greater Sudbury's accomplishments.

Four areas — growth, infrastructure, tourism and the city's image — were the focus of a special council meeting July 13 to identify and establish priorities within the city.

A variety of ideas were pitched at the July 13 meeting, including the need to look at stats regarding youth-out migration, encouraging the development of time-share cottages on area lakes, selling the city's surplus assets and exploring green technology to save the city money.

Ward 7 Coun. Dave Kilgour suggested the city fast-track it's plan to develop industrial lands. Last month, city council did approve a plan to move forward to develop the Lasalle/Elizabella and Fielding Road area for industrial use. However, the earliest the land will be ready for use will be next year and could take up to five years.

Kilgour said the city should consider seeking funds to move the project forward faster.

“We've got one of the lowest debt ratios in the province, somewhere around 0.5 per cent,” he said.

“We have an opportunity over the next couple of years of really experiencing a boom. Northern Ontario is going to be developing much faster than the rest of the county. We've got to be ready for that.”

Ward 5 Coun. Ron Dupuis said the city should honour prominent citizens from the area, and suggested a rock of fame be built.

“This is what we're renown for and ... we could have plaques at all the rocks that surround Science North or we could have them downtown,” he said.

“It doesn't matter where they are. But there are so many people that are champions.”

The meeting was facilitated by Karen Gordon from Squeaky Wheel Communications. Mayor Marianne Matichuk said from here, councillors would prioritize all ideas and Gordon would take the information and create a list of the top priorities.

“Everybody's going to have their input to rank what they think is the top priority and it would be fair to see what council wants to do with all of those items,” she said.