Jeff Wright - Mayoral Candidate
*transcribed speech
Welcome, and thank you for coming tonight.
I'd first like to thank Mayor Trina Jones and her council for the hard work that they've put in the last three and a half years. It's not an easy job.
It's impossible to say everything that I want to say in the next four minutes, so I'm going to give you the bold notes version. I'm Jeff Wright. I'm running for mayor. I want to be your mayor because I believe in Woodstock. I was born here. I was raised here. My family is here. My family's run business here for 74 years. Woodstock is where my heart is. It's where I'll die, and I can't imagine living anywhere else.
I always felt like I left the mayor's chair a little too early. I can remember one night I was walking out the door, and my son Matthew was 10 years old at the time, and he said, ‘Dad, where are you going?’ I said, ‘I have a meeting to go to’ he said ‘you go to a lot of meetings.’ And right then and there I knew it was time to step away. But now I would like to step back in.
There's been some rhetoric that there's a we-against-us scenario, and that really isn't true. And we're not here to tear down anything this council's done. We are not going to try to dismantle anything that's been done. I believe in Woodstock. I believe in moving forward. And they talked about the old boys club. They must be talking about you, Arthur, because I'm only 61.
We have to be very diligent in how we spend our money. It's not about staying within our budget. It's about where the money's being spent. I was proud of our police force back when I was mayor in 2001 and 2004. I often bragged about our police force. At remembrance day events, and at functions out in the community. And I sometimes took heat for it from the RCMP. I can remember one time when Sputnik McCarthy called me into his office, and he said, ‘Jeff, you've talked about the Woodstock police force, and you've talked about the police force, but you don't say anything about the RCMP.’ And I said, ‘Sputt, you don't work for me. They do.’ And I was proud of them then. I'm proud of the police force now. And we're going to have a police force that will be the envy of every small town in New Brunswick, if not Canada.
On my door-to-door campaigning, it became evidently clear to me that we need to listen as a council. And there were three things that popped up in the majority of people's minds. It was taxes, water and sewer, and the roads. We simply cannot increase tax revenue by increasing taxes. We can increase tax revenue by new development. With new development comes increased assessments. Yes, it may raise your taxes, but your properties are also worth more money.
The water and sewer. I think we need to go back to a metered system, a system that's fair to all residents. Why should a single mother that lives on one side of the street pay the exact same amount of money for someone that lives across the street with six people and have a pool, perhaps? Metering may not be the answer, but without a metered system or without a fair system, we absolutely are not thinking about conservation.
The roads. Back when I was mayor in 2004, we had a comprehensive paving program. We need to go back to that. We need to develop a five-year plan. We need to stick to that. And it's not just about asphalt. It's about the infrastructure underneath the ground. I've seen too many roads paved here, and six months to a year later, they're torn up because there's a water break.
I respect Mayor Jones the same as I respect every mayor before or after me. I remember the Ron Moffatts, the Harold Culberts, the Jim Andows, the Clara Moffatts, the Randy Leonard, and the Arthur Slips. Each and every one of those mayors did the job because they love Woodstock, and they did the best job they could under the Municipalities Act and with good fiscal management. I ask for your support on May 11th.
Thank you.