Steve Black had such a positive experience during his first four-year term on Timmins council, it convinced him to run for the mayor’s seat.
“I really enjoyed my term on council and enjoyed interacting with the residents and taking part in the community activities, along with sitting at the council table trying to make the decisions to guide us on the right path forward, so it was always something that was in the back of my mind,” he said.
The decision was solidified once former, long-serving mayor Tom Laughren decided not to run again; Black saw it as an opportunity to further work with council to help guide the city into future.
“We’ve got to work together and make sure we’re marching the goals of the whole community forward, not just our own strong personal goals,” he said.
One focus for council is infrastructure funding and upgrades to the connecting link. With provincial funding cut, the city needs to make up the lag somewhere.
“(The province) announced their infrastructure program, and really we got a couple hundred thousand dollars out of it, which isn’t enough to do what we need to do on the connecting link alone, which they used to be 90 per cent responsible for, so we’re going to have to continue those discussions,” he said.
Black cites lots of positive changes and updates to the city over the last four years: four new hotels, the Extendicare facility, the Autumnwood seniors’ living facility, and the airport’s stratosphere balloon launch centre are construction projects that demonstrate confidence in the community, he said.
But more can be done, and the city will continue the implementation of its strategic plan to guide it in the right direction.
“That’s something that council’s going to need to sit down and discuss and decide what their direction is for continuing with the strategic plan items that were identified and how we’re going to implement those in a cost-efficient manner,” Black said.
With some of the city’s major employers looking to wind down operations, the city needs to be prepared with alternatives that reach beyond 2015, he added.
“We need to take a more long-term approach on what’s best for the community, financially and long-term,” Black said.
The most widely talked about issue is the looming shutdown of Glencore’s Kidd Mine, which is slated for closure in 2021. One of Timmins’ major employers shutting down will mean jobs, taxes, and economic spinoffs going with it.
Black, who worked as superintendent of production engineering at Kidd before moving into the mayor’s seat, said it’s unlikely the city would come up with a sole, ready-made alternative. But there are other opportunities to be recognized.
“It’s a deposit that was around for half a century and really provided a good source of jobs and economic impact for the community,” he said. “But we’ve got a lot of positives going on.”
That includes inroads made by other mining operations, tourism initiatives, and hosting festivals and conferences, but the big area of opportunity lies in establishing Timmins as a regional hub.
In its Northern Growth Plan, the province identified Timmins, along with the four other major Northern Ontario cities, as a strategic core area for investments in postsecondary education and training, regional hospitals and/or specialized health care, major redevelopment projects, research and innovation centres, major cultural institutions and entertainment facilities, and integrated public transportation systems.
But Timmins still lacks a few amenities to put it on a level playing field with the other communities, Black said.
“We need to have some diversification in our economy, and we need to work with the government to hopefully catch up to the other regional hubs,” Black said.
He’s also hoping to gain the support of council for a core service review to differentiate the core municipal services versus services that another partner could offer, and said addressing the need for new or upgraded arena facilities will be an additional priority.
