Three decades in politics enough for mayor

Author: Frank Matys

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Frank Matys

Orillia Mayor Ron Stevens says he does not intend to run for another term.

Ron Stevens sought a third consecutive term as Orillia’s mayor because, in his words, “there was so much left to do.”
Now 69 and more than half way through a four-year term, the veteran politician remains knee-deep in goals and priorities.
However, another term in office is not one of them.
“You reach a point in your life when you have to understand the importance of your life as a whole,” he said during an interview in his third-floor office. “As of now, my intention is not to (run again).”
He does, however, intend to finish what he and his council of eight either started or carried over from the previous term.
“Just to get those projects done would be greatly satisfying for me,” he added.
And there is no shortage of projects.
Despite vocal opposition from some quarters, the city is speeding ahead with plans for a new library and redeveloped market square – arguably the most ambitious undertaking this council has successfully tackled to date, and the one most likely to stand as its legacy.
Other successes have not come so easily.
Abandoning a plan to secure the Huronia Regional Centre property for Lakehead University’s permanent campus was “a critical decision” driven by a tightening timeline, Stevens said.
The glacial pace of the Ontario Realty Corporation – the agency responsible for surplussed government lands – clearly remains a thorn in his side.
“It is an absolute crime that (Lakehead) is not (at the HRC),” he said.
The school agreed to settle on municipal farmlands earmarked for future industrial growth, a point not lost on critics who charged council was depleting what little land it had left for new business.
Stevens argues otherwise.
“Post-secondary education is an industry on its own, so I don’t think we have gone beyond the mandate of that,” he added.
In fact, he envisions a day when Lakehead’s presence will draw the sort of high-tech industry that has flocked to the Kitchener-Waterloo region.
“It is a far-reaching thing,” he added.
The planned move of Lakehead to west Orillia was one of two major decisions prompted by crisis.
When the city’s timeworn community centre was deemed unfit for public use – sending ice-reliant sports groups into an angry frenzy – council began a frantic hunt for solutions.
Again they looked west, to the city-owned farm that will now serve as home to a twin-pad arena, an arena once touted as a major component of a long-delayed multi-use recreation facility.
With the future of Orillia’s contaminated MURF site still mired in uncertainty, Stevens acknowledges that other components of that project cannot sit idle indefinitely.
The aquatics program, for example.
“It is difficult for me to say that will go on the MURF site,” he added. “If we are presented with an opportunity to put in an aquatics centre (elsewhere) that is accessible, council has to look at that.”
If not off the table, the environmentally troubled West Street property is most definitely on the back burner, at least until the province rules on a twice-rejected safety plan for the polluted site.
If anything ever appears on the property, it may well bear little resemblance to the legacy project that has sucked up millions of dollars yet failed to materialize.
“It could be something else,” Stevens added. “It could be playing fields. We still need baseball diamonds. From an economic point of view, it would have been great to have them all in one spot.”
Asked whether he harbours any regrets – a question that can’t help but come to mind during any discussion of the trouble-plagued MURF site – Stevens says, “The regrets you have are the opportunities that didn’t work out.”
Later, when asked if he had any advice to offer his successor, whomever that may be, he added:
“You have to be prepared for failure. Not everything works out for you.”
When the term does come to an end in late 2010, Stevens may look elsewhere for work, possibly within the upper levels of government.
“I am not going to fall off the face of the earth,” he added.