The new mayor of Iroquois Falls knows that the ball he’s picking up from the previous council is a big one.
Pat Britton was sworn in along with his six councillors Monday night.
He says the town took “a pretty bad beating over the last four years,” in the wake of the closure of its only industry, the Resolute paper mill.
Mayor Britton’s first priority is to complete the updating of the Official Plan and the Community Improvement Plan early in 2019. That will allow the town to offer incentives for businesses to locate in the Falls.
“The previous council was working on this,” he notes. “It’s just they hit the change of guard, so to speak, and we’re picking up the ball. And that’s our top priority right at this time is to get this done.”
Britton likes the diversity among his councillors. Two of the six are rookies, and all of them represent different professions and ages.
“The older councillors like myself, I mean we might be stuck in a time warp someplace,’ he remarks, “and we’ve got some of the younger ones now who can maybe shake the cage and wake us up.”
Mayor Britton served as a councillor for eight years, then lost the mayor’s race in 2014.