Friday, July 15, 2022 9Brooklin Town Crier and priorities. I was encouraged by many to run for regional council in 1997 but my children were 11 and 13 and I was coaching them in minor sports and would not exchange that time with them for anything. Second, what I have always cared about was my town and you can positively impact your town a lot more as a councillor and especially as a mayor. If what you care about is your town, you have way more influence as a mayor than as an MP or MPP. And I'm not sure my personality is suited to a kind of follow the leader reality of those levels of government. It sometimes seems the leader's voice is everything. In those early days, before development in Brooklin took hold, were there issues you struggled with? What were they and why? The major issues in Brooklin in the early pre-growth years were about the negative impacts from having a provincial highway running through our downtown. The Brooklin Business Association then - led by Rick Barnes, Connie Heron and Dave Stewart - had constant problems and frustrations. Not much has changed. That is still the biggest problem and the biggest thing that needs to be fixed. Council must pick an alternate route for Highway 7/12 or downtown Brooklin and Brooklin generally will suffer. The 407 plan was more or less approved when I came back here in 1990. I wasn't aware of much opposition to the 407. I personally thought it would be quite noisy though it has not turned out to be the case. I went to some of the sessions where there was discussion of the road being north because I thought it would be a better location. The engineers said that's wrong, that if it were north, the sound would wash down over the town. They said this will not be noisy. And they're right. My disappointment about it then when I got on council was that I was saying we need a bypass. We know what's coming. Have service land that can run around Brooklin, like the QEW around Hamilton and Stoney Creek. They said no. So I've been trying to get that bypass forever. The mid-block arterial will be great alongside the new sports complex. What were the main differences between being a ward and regional councillor that you perhaps didn't foresee in 2006 when you became a regional councillor? Local issues more directly impact people and neighbourhoods - whether it be planning or parks or traffic - there is a lot more consultation and involvement in those decisions. Regional issues are broader and are much more about policy and precedent - and properly so. Because regional councillors also sit on local council, there is no divide. We all work well together. The final scene of the film The Candidate starring Robert Redford showed him in his hotel room after winning a senatorial election. He looks at his campaign manager, played by Peter Boye, and asks, "What do we do now?" So, after 12 years as a ward councillor and eight years as a regional one, you chose to run for mayor and won with 73% of the vote. Was there such a moment? No. I was very clear when I ran for mayor about the kind of town I would work to build. I handed out copies of "Walkable City" throughout the campaign which is all about building a great town and great downtowns through a constant focus on walkability. The Ten Steps of Walkability are: Put cars in their place - Mix the uses - Get the parking right - Let transit work - Protect the pedestrian - Welcome bikes - Shape the spaces - Plant trees - Make friendly and unique faces - And pick your winners. This is a blue- print for a vibrant, safe, accessible and welcoming community. We have taken many positive steps towards that ideal over the last eight years. What is there in municipal politics that the general public either doesn't understand or doesn't know? Municipal politics is harder than when I started for two main reasons. The first reason is the accelerating impacts of politicized meda. Politics is essentially about achieving consensus through reason, shared information and discussion. It is rooted in being willing to consider other perspectives and to compromise. Politicized social media is generally unpleasant (too toxic) and polarizing. It discourages consensus and distorts information to manipulate its user. It is designed to hold screen attention and generating anger is the easiest way to do that. The second reason is the provincial rules which forbid members of council from doing precisely what provincial and federal members are allowed to do and always do: meet together in private to discuss matters as elected representatives before the public discussion and decision. Apart from the hypocrisy of these provincial requirements - do as I say, not as I do - they reduce the ability of any council to have the frank discussion that are sometimes needed to ensure the implications of the different decision options are understood. These rules were not in place when I joined council and they make things harder. What are you most proud of after all these years? I am proud because we live in a town that Whitby and Brooklin residents are overwhelmingly proud to call home. This local pride shows in how good our town looks and how many amazing residents volunteer their time and talents to keep making it better for everyone. While council decisions are team decisions, I can highlight some where I played a large role in achieving the outcome. As a local councillor, I am proud of the "one downtown" vision for Brooklin that was implemented in our Official Plan in the 1990s and is now being realized through the development of the southwest corner of Baldwin and Winchester. This decision will ensure Brooklin will have a substantial downtown area commensurate with its ultimate size so it will remain the true "heart" of the village and that the historic downtown will always be an integral and important part of Brooklin's future. When I joined regional council, I worked very hard to increase our focus on climate change which led to the creation of the Durham Region Roundtable on Climate Change which I chaired for many years. Locally and regionally, major initiatives have since been taken to try and meet this existential threat to our shared future. As Mayor, I am proud of the council goals that were adopted unanimously in the first meeting of both councils. I had never seen this done anywhere and felt it was tremendously important to have council define and strengthen its shared vision for the future. The council goals have been very impactful in achieving positive outcomes and our staff have done a tremendous job implementing those goals. What have been your frustrations? My biggest frustration is our collective failure to really come to grips with the accelerating threat of global warming. This is a far, far greater threat to our future, and our grandchildrens', than Covid. But we saw a powerful and successful global mobilization to fight Covid while our collective response to global warming remains tepid. The one big, big frustration is that we haven't chosen an alternate route around Brooklin. We're now in year eight of council actively, positively, aggressively pursuing that. We signed an agreement with the ministry in 2015 saying this is what we want, We want to achieve this. And now eight years later, to be still working through the EA (Environmental Assessment) is just painful. But that is one issue that is so important to the future that I will stay involved. Council has to decide. To me, the answer is clear that you have to pick a route. That highway (12) is just unacceptable.These trucks drive past Lakeridge Road coming from the west and they chug through Brooklin and go north. They ought to sit down for 10 minutes and look at a map. What are you doing? It never stops. What is one thing about you people would be surprised to learn? I played hockey one winter in Belgium. The Flemish part of Belgium. They gave me a job. In 4th year university, a guy who had gone over and came back was my roommate at Trent. He said call this guy, take your skates and they'll find you a team. I went over hitch hiking around but I took my skates which are a bit of a nuisance in a backpack. The job was really neat. Artists built these sort of facades that sat over the fireplaces. So this other guy and I were basically the flunkies who did the varathaning of these art pieces. What will you miss? I will miss working with so many great people - from council, staff and the community - and having an important voice in shaping our town's future. When a council works together and really seizes the opportunity of leadership they have been given, it is tremendously rewarding and satisfying. continued from page 8 Don and his first campaign sign