“I am not asking residents to agree with me on every issue. In fact, if I serve four years on Council and someone agrees with every vote I cast, I would probably be surprised. What I am asking people to expect is that I will listen, do my homework, ask questions and make the decision I genuinely believe is best based on the information in front of me.”

Why do you want to be a city councillor?

I’m running because I believe residents are paying more and expecting more accountability for what they are getting in return. After speaking with nearly 1,500 residents, I keep hearing many of the same concerns: property taxes, roads, traffic, neighbourhood safety, parks, recreation and whether people actually feel heard by City Hall.

I believe Council needs to get back to the basics and make sure the services residents rely on every day are working well before taking on more nice-to-haves. I also want residents to have a councillor who is accessible, communicates regularly and is willing to explain how and why they voted.

For me, this is also personal. I was born and raised in Guelph, have lived in Ward 4 since 2000 and am now raising my own family here. I want Guelph to remain an affordable, safe and well-run city for the next generation. At the end of four years, I want residents to be able to compare what I said I would do with what I actually delivered.

What is your background and experience, and how do you think that will serve you as a city councillor?

I am a small business owner and run a residential construction company focused on renovations and basement accessory dwelling units. I built the company from the ground up, and every day I deal with budgets, schedules, trades, customers, permits, unexpected costs and problems that need practical solutions.

That experience has taught me to look past what something is supposed to cost or how something is supposed to work and ask whether it actually makes sense in practice. When a project goes over budget, I cannot simply accept the increase and pass it along. I have to question costs, find efficiencies, prioritize and ultimately be accountable for the result.

I have also been involved extensively in minor sports as a coach, volunteer and team manager. That has given me another perspective on how much families rely on our parks, arenas, fields and community organizations.

I think Council could benefit from more people who have had to build something themselves, manage real budgets and solve problems where the outcome ultimately rests on them.

Given Strong Mayor Powers, how do you see your role as a city councillor when the mayor can override the will of council with just three votes?

Strong Mayor Powers change the balance at City Hall, but they do not change what I believe residents should expect from their councillor. My job would still be to do my homework, ask difficult questions, scrutinize spending, represent Ward 4 and make decisions based on the merits of what is in front of me.

I would not support or oppose something simply because it came from the mayor or because a particular group of councillors supported it. I am an independent thinker and I want to evaluate each decision based on the information available, the impact on residents and whether I believe it is the right decision for Guelph.

Strong Mayor Powers also make transparency even more important. If significant authority is concentrated in the mayor’s office, councillors need to be willing to publicly explain where they stand, build support around alternatives when they disagree and make sure residents understand what is happening.

Being a councillor cannot become an excuse to shrug and say the mayor has the power. Residents elect councillors to represent them, and I would continue doing that regardless of who is mayor.

Affordability is important to a lot of voters, and municipal budgeting can be very difficult. How will you balance the needs of a growing city with the demands for low or zero tax increases over the next term?

I would never promise a zero tax increase simply because it sounds good during an election. Inflation, growth, infrastructure needs and costs outside the City’s direct control make that unrealistic in many years. At the same time, I do not believe high tax increases can simply become the new normal.

My approach would be necessities before nice-to-haves. I want every department, program and major expenditure regularly challenged on cost, results and whether there is a better way to deliver it. We should be looking for duplication, reviewing discretionary spending, learning from municipalities delivering services more efficiently and pushing outside boards and shared services to justify increases.

That does not mean cutting roads, snow clearing, parks, recreation or other services residents rely on. Those are exactly the things I want to protect.

My goal would be to bring the overall increase below 6.5 per cent in the next budget and work toward a more sustainable 3.5 to 5 per cent range over the term. I want to get there through better prioritization and efficiency, not by allowing core services to deteriorate.

Council this past term has done a lot of housing policy, but that hasn’t translated into more shovels in the ground. How will you help close the gap over the next four years?

I work in residential construction, including building basement accessory dwelling units, so I see the difference between creating housing capacity on paper and actually getting something built.

I want us measuring housing success by permits issued, construction started and homes completed, not simply by how many theoretical units a policy change allows. Once zoning permits housing, we need to understand what is stopping the project from moving forward. Is it servicing? Financing? Permit timelines? Development charges? Engineering requirements? Construction costs? Sometimes the answer will be outside municipal control, but where the City is creating a bottleneck we should fix it.

I would like to see simpler and more predictable approval processes for common projects, clearer requirements earlier in the process and better coordination between planning, building, engineering and other departments so applicants are not solving one issue only to discover another later.

I would also prioritize infrastructure that unlocks housing that is otherwise ready to proceed. Housing policy matters, but ultimately a home only helps the housing shortage once somebody can actually live in it.

Aside from the demands for more housing, land use planning also means assuring that there’s enough room to account for growth in business, institutional and commercial land uses, how will you balance all these priorities?

Housing cannot be the only measure of successful growth. A city also needs places for people to work, shop, build businesses, access healthcare, attend school, play sports and receive public services.

I would be cautious about converting employment and commercial lands to residential simply because housing may be the most valuable use in the short term. Once employment land disappears, it is extremely difficult to replace. We need enough land for industrial and commercial businesses to grow, and we should be making it easier for employers to invest and create jobs in Guelph.

The same applies to institutional and community uses. When we plan thousands of additional homes, we need to think at the same time about schools, parks, recreation, healthcare, emergency services and neighbourhood commercial space.

I do not think good planning means maximizing the number of residential units on every available piece of land. It means building complete communities and looking at what that neighbourhood and the broader city will need 10, 20 and 30 years from now.

Growth needs balance, because people need more than somewhere to sleep.

Water availability is a growing concern. How will you ensure that Guelph has the capacity it needs to support this growing city?

Water needs to be treated as a hard constraint on growth, not something we assume will work itself out later.

I would make sure our growth decisions and capital planning are tied to demonstrated water and wastewater capacity. That means continuing to develop additional groundwater supply, investigating new well capacity, bringing existing sources back into service where practical, protecting important groundwater and recharge areas, and continuing conservation and water-loss reduction efforts.

I also think Council needs clear reporting on where our water capacity actually stands as the city grows. Residents should be able to understand how much capacity we have today, what projects are expected to add capacity, when those projects will be completed and what happens if growth occurs faster than expected.

I support growth and new housing, but approving development faster than the infrastructure required to service it is not responsible planning. If we know additional water capacity will be required, those investments need to be planned, funded and completed before they become an emergency.

Trust in government and institutions is major issue. How will you keep your constituents well informed about city hall business, and help them feel included when it comes to decision making?

This is one of the main reasons I am running. Residents should not have to follow hours of Council meetings or dig through hundreds of pages of reports to understand what their councillor is doing.

If elected, I will provide regular Ward 4 updates explaining what is coming to Council, what decisions were made and how I voted on significant issues. When there is a major issue affecting Ward 4, I want residents hearing about it before the vote whenever possible so they have an opportunity to provide feedback while it can still matter.

I am also committing to acknowledging resident inquiries within 24 hours. That does not mean every issue can be solved in a day, but people deserve to know their message was received, who is dealing with it and what happens next.

I would also continue the kind of direct engagement I have done throughout this campaign. Some of the best conversations I have had were with residents who had an issue bothering them for years but never thought it was important enough to contact their councillor about. People should not feel that way.

What would you say is your issue? What is the one thing you want to talk about on the campaign trail this fall and have a thorough debate about it before this election is over?

Accountability for how we spend residents’ money.

I do not think the debate should simply be between people who want to cut everything and people who want to spend more. The better question is whether residents are getting the results they were promised for the money being spent.

When Council approves a program or major expenditure, I want us asking some very basic questions: What problem are we trying to solve? What will it cost? How will we measure whether it worked? When will we review it? And if it is not producing the results we expected, are we willing to change direction?

That same accountability should apply to councillors. Residents should know how we voted, why we voted that way and whether we followed through on what we told them during the election.

I think there needs to be a much bigger conversation in Guelph about the difference between spending money and achieving results. Government should not measure success by how much it spends. It should measure success by what residents actually receive in return.

What perspective do you think you will bring to council that is not currently reflected?

I think Council could use more of the perspective of someone who has built and operates a small business and works directly in residential construction.

My first instinct when I see a proposal is often very practical: How will this actually work? What will it cost? Who is going to build it? What happens when the estimate is wrong? What does this requirement look like for the person actually trying to complete the project?

Running a construction company means I deal with those questions every day. I have had to manage cash flow, coordinate and pay trades, work through permits and inspections, deal with rising material costs and tell customers when something is not possible within their budget. There is nowhere to hide when a decision turns out to be wrong.

I also bring the perspective of a younger family raising two children in Ward 4 and relying on the parks, roads, arenas, sports fields and community services that families use every week.

I would bring a practical, results-focused perspective and a willingness to question whether the way we have always done something is still the best way to do it.

BONUS: Is there anything else you want to tell voters as they make their decision?

I am not asking residents to agree with me on every issue. In fact, if I serve four years on Council and someone agrees with every vote I cast, I would probably be surprised.

What I am asking people to expect is that I will listen, do my homework, ask questions and make the decision I genuinely believe is best based on the information in front of me. I will not make decisions based on which political side supports something or because a special interest group wants me to sign onto a position before I have all the information.

I was born and raised in Guelph, have lived in Ward 4 since 2000 and am now raising my own family here. This community matters to me long beyond one election.

If elected, hold me to what I have said during this campaign. Look at how I voted, whether I was accessible, whether I communicated and whether I followed through.

At the end of four years, judge me on the results.