I have been looking deeper into Lakeshore’s numbers and something caught my attention. From 2022 to 2025 our residential assessed base appears to have grown roughly 7%, while the comparable commercial and industrial assessed base grew around 1%.

Now I’m not saying council caused those numbers because assessment is more complicated than that, and I’m not saying they haven’t done anything for business because they have. But 7% compared to around 1% makes me ask a pretty simple question. Were we putting enough weight and urgency on both sides?

This is what I mean when I keep saying same ingredients, different order and different weight. Council and I actually agree on a lot of the things Lakeshore needs. Infrastructure, housing, businesses, industry, jobs, and going after grants when they make sense. Where I differ is how I would have gone about it.

That’s where my continuous improvement experience comes in. In business, when you have a number of problems in front of you, you don’t wait until one is completely finished before you start working on the next one. You figure out what can move at the same time, what is holding things up, get the right people working on each problem and keep pushing them forward. That’s what I mean by working in parallel and that’s what I would have been doing from day one.

While we’re working on roads, wastewater, drainage and fixing the infrastructure we already have, I would also be pushing to get employment lands serviced and ready for investment, bringing businesses and industry here, making our assets work for us and strengthening our tax base. At the same time we can still plan for housing and go after grants. We don’t have to choose one or the other.

And yes I know these things take time. That’s exactly my point. If industrial land takes years to get ready then why weren’t we pushing harder four years ago? Where was the urgency? Council’s own plan talked about becoming an economic leader, developing industrial lands and attracting businesses.

Now we’re starting the process around another 133 acres of potential industrial land near Patillo Road. I support it. I just ask why now? If we knew this takes years, why weren’t we working harder on it earlier? After four years I believe we should be further ahead on that side.

Look at the urgency we put behind residential growth. We went after the Housing Accelerator Fund, made planning changes, created housing incentives and we’re investing in infrastructure that can support a lot more homes. I’m not against that. I’m asking why we didn’t have that same urgency on the business and industrial side at the same time.

Residential growth brings assessment and that’s good, but it also brings more demand on our roads, wastewater, drainage, parks, recreation, fire services and everything else that comes with more people. Business and industry have costs too, but they bring jobs and help strengthen and diversify our tax base.

That’s what Stronger Before Bigger means to me. It doesn’t mean stop housing or stop growth. It means work the problems in parallel. Fix what we have while getting employment lands ready, attracting business and industry, making our assets work for us and strengthening the tax base.

Some people are going to say we’re already doing this and they’re right, some of it is happening. My question is about the weight, the urgency and the results. If residential assessment grew roughly 7% and the comparable commercial and industrial side grew around 1%, I think it’s fair to ask if both sides really got the same urgency.

Same ingredients. Different order. Different weight.

That’s the continuous improvement thinking I would bring to Lakeshore. Work on both sides at the same time, manage the risk and don’t wait until the end to start pushing the other side.

Let’s Make Lakeshore Stronger Before We Make It Bigger.

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Moving Lakeshore Forward