It’s hot outside, but the first strikes in the 2018 mayoral campaign have been almost as hot. It begins. 

Challenger Aggie Mlynarz launched her campaign platform at her headquarters across from City Hall at noon today. Meanwhile, the campaign for the present mayor, Cam Guthrie, sent out an email first thing this morning with its first campaign announcement.

First, the challenger Mlynarz, and the candidate said it’s been an “exciting four weeks” developing the platform with input from “dozens of members of the community.”

“I believe that leadership is all about collaboration, and I believe that’s a key point that’s missing over at City Hall right now. I see the management over their as disappointing from my perspective,” Mlynarz said.

The four planks of the Mlynarz campaign are sustainability, new development, community wellbeing and infrastructure. Encouraging green tech and small to medium green businesses were mentioned, and so was the need to protect the city’s ground water resources.

Under wellbeing, Mlynarz called for a Mental Health Strategy to bring together local resources and community leaders to develop a city-wide strategy for deal with the opioid crisis and other mental health issues. “Seeing what we have a lot of, what is lacking, and who needs it the most, and trying to connect all those sources together to get the bottom of the issue is the only way to raise it up,” she said.

“I don’t think there’s a ‘silver bullet’ solution such as just staffing police, or something like that,” Mlynarz added.

That zinger was directed at the first platform announcement from the campaign to re-elect Guthrie, which sent out a press release this morning announcing that Neighbourhood Public Safety and Crime Prevention were going to be the key priorities of the campaign. Included in that is Guthrie’s intention to call for “an immediate investment of up to $750,000 per year to the Guelph Police Service for new officers, technology or prevention programs to address property thefts, drugs and speeding in Guelph neighbourhoods.” 

“I have spoken with countless residents who are concerned about increases in thefts, break-ins, drugs, speeding and indecent acts in our public spaces,” said Guthrie in a video posted to Facebook. “In addition to recommending an immediate investment in our police service, I will continue to work with other levels of government and community organizations to address addiction and mental health issues.”

Mlynarz, meanwhile, said her campaign is trying to be environmentally conscious by using 100 per cent recycled paper for campaign materials, and by not printing off the complete platform unless otherwise requested for accessibility purposes. You can find the full Mlynarz campaign platform here.

Meanwhile, the Guthrie campaign has said that they’ll launch their campaign platform this coming Friday.