Steve Ferguson:  Why are you running for mayor and why should the people of Prince Edward County vote for you?

I have absolutely adored being municipal councillor for the past four years in South Marysburg. I think that public service and being of service to the community is an important component of living in a community such as Prince Edward County.

One of my strengths in previous life and in my experience on council has been the ability to build consensus and move my colleagues in directions that I think we needed to do.

So I plan to if I'm successful in working with Council to continue to build consensus so that we can deal with important issues that have to be dealt with such as accessible health affordable housing, seniors care and our unemployment and jobs creation programs that are so crucial to the community.

I think that that has really driven this decision that was made some time ago along with the fact that my previous experience in sales and marketing and executive management are certainly going to be an asset moving us forward.

What kind of leader will you be? How would you plan to lead going forward?

One thing we have to do is form consensus about the critical issues Prince Edward County and Prince Edward County residents and businesses face.

Let me give you some examples. We have the second highest population of seniors as a percentage of population in the province of Ontario. We have to ensure for that group that there is accessible health care that accessibility issues are attended to, that transportation issues are dealt with. That's crucial.

We also have the issue of the Prince Edward Memorial Hospital which we are is going to be rebuilt. It will be a new hospital to provide emergency and health care services as needed.

We also have the issue of housing in Prince Edward County which has become a crucial concern because of short-term rentals and general affordability.

The short-term rental issue -- the Airbnb to use the brand name -- has had a profound effect on Prince Edward County and we have to address that.

But one of the key things that I would hope I could lead council to deal with is new sources of revenue. We can't continue to, with the population base we've got, we cannot afford to impose cost increases on tax payers without paying attention to making sure that our costs are managed appropriately and finding new sources of revenue.

So the question was how I would lead. I would lead to identify the goals that need to be our objectives and goals that we must attend to and deal with in the immediate term and longer term.
 

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