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Looking at every spending decision at city hall through a climate lens is the most effective strategy Stratford can use to minimize its impact on the environment, mayoral hopeful Kathy Vassilakos says.
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“The budget is where we make the biggest impact,” Vassilakos said during a mayoral debate at Cooperlight, formerly Knox Presbyterian Church, on Wednesday. “Asking all city departments to put a climate lens both on the operations budget and also on the capital budget is how we do the job that we’re supposed to do in terms of meeting our climate goals.”
Stratford’s mayoral candidates – Vassilakos, Martin Ritsma and Robert Ritz – went toe-to-toe Wednesday during an event hosted by the Stratford Arts and Culture Collective and the Stratford chapter of the Canadian Federation of University Women.
Candidates’ ideas about how to address climate change at a local level was one of four topics of focus.
Ritsma spent a chunk of his time on the question sharing with the crowd of about 300 people some of the environmentally-friendly decisions he’s made at home on his farm, including geothermal heating and plans for rooftop solar panels that will make the operation carbon neutral.
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“Different people can attain that because of different abilities financially, but the other thing we can do is help those individuals that can’t by incentivizing,” he said. “Maybe you’re putting on a solar panel, (but) what can we do as a municipality to help those individuals?”
Ritz responded by taking up his position as the mayoral race’s council outsider, asking Ritsma specifically why he hasn’t pushed for those types of initiatives at city hall sooner.
“Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I’m here now, to help push some of this forward,” Ritz said after running through a few of his own ideas, including decarbonizing the city’s vehicle fleet, insulating and repurposing heritage buildings, and exploring whether Festival Hydro can play a role helping residents manage green infrastructure at their homes.
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“When we do this stuff we should make sure we get a return on investment and … the cost of these incentives is managed outside of the tax base, that it’s self-sustaining and self-financed.”
Vassilakos wrapped up the segment by defending some of the projects city hall has already moved forward with, including the purchase of an electric Zamboni, the green bin program and switching to LED lighting in municipal buildings.
“We did actually declare a climate emergency, we set our (greenhouse gas emission) target and we did hire a climate change manager who is going to work on this,” she said. “I think we know what we need to do, we just need to do more of it and faster.”
Wednesday’s debate was moderated by Pat Quigley, former director of education for the Stratford Festival. Besides the environment, the event included other topics of importance to both host organizations including housing and Stratford’s arts and culture scene.
The debate followed a similar event hosted by the Stratford and District Chamber of Commerce that included all 32 city council candidates earlier this month.
On Thursday, the Local Community Food Centre is hosting the Stratford Municipal Election Community Think Tank at 6 p.m. Stratford city council candidates will join members of the community in moderated round-table discussions about various local issues.
Stratford's climate change response a topic of focus at latest mayoral debate - Stratford Beacon-Herald
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