You can’t say Timmins Mayor Steve Black never listens to local residents.

In fact, it was a simple question that sparked the layout of much of his 2017 State of the City address Wednesday afternoon at the Senator Hotel.

That question? List the 10 accomplishments he feels proud of as Mayor.

Of course, there were the obvious ones like the Stars and Thunder Festival (Black confirms a Canadian will headline the 2018 edition)—the Cochrane DSSAB, the Aquatic Centre, the 2017 budget (which he’s quick to remind people came in at the 2nd lowest expenditure increase in 16 years at 2.41 per cent) and the KPMG core services review.

But there were the other topics that strike a chord among the local population.

He spoke of giving the Franco-Ontarian flag a permanent home on a flagpole outside city hall, the Timmins Rock NOJHL franchise continuing to make contributions to the community since coming from Iroquois Falls, the ongoing Connecting Link construction, the industrial rail park and the EMS Complex under construction at Northern College.

With so many topics and so many projects, not all are going to get the support among the general public.

But the Mayor defended each decision during his speech. He says controversy and progression work hand-in-hand with one another.

“If you want to have a non-controversial political term, you sit back and kind of go with the flow and don’t really change anything, don’t really try and progress in any areas,” he said, “This council has done a number of projects which have been in the works but not able to get past the final hump of going ahead.”

Overall, he says 2017 was a big year for the city, which saw—and continues to see—changes such as a new CAO in Dave Landers and incoming Fire Chief Norm Beauchamp.

But Black isn’t alone, as he has eight council members making decisions as well. Black says each council has their own views and opinions, and take their own direction.

“For many years, the goal was to have zero debt and reduce the debt and those councils were very successful at reducing our debt. It came perhaps at the expense of not doing some of the infrastructure work that now we’re moving forward with the highway, the Connecting Link and some of the other bigger capital projects,” he said.

“This current council has seemed to take the approach that they want to move many of the projects that have been sitting on the side or some new projects forward to try and enhance Timmins and build on it’s ability to attract and retain residents.”

As for next year, it’ll be another big year according to the Mayor.

And with 2018 being an election year, Black says there’s still more projects on the horizon but they do have to play a waiting game on one certain thing.

“We’ll see what happens in terms of who files to run in the next election,” he said, “You do get into a period where you have potentially a ‘lame-duck’ period where you’re not allowed to approve certain issues beyond that if the majority of council chooses not to run again.”

Until then, Black is sure council will continue to work through the remainder of the term.

NOTE: The full speech was 29 pages long. CLICK HERE to read it in full.

Filed under: Local News