Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin has represented the town as a member of council since 1994, and she hopes to continue to do so as she seeks re-election this fall.
With municipal elections set for October, and Dollin’s first term as mayor wrapping up, she’ll be on the campaign trail later this year and looks to continue with the progress her council has made since being elected in 2018.
“I want to see what we can accomplish in four years without one hand tied behind our back,” she said. “For half the term we had the pandemic, and I’m very proud of our record and our community and how we dealt with the challenges of the pandemic with our resiliency, but at the same time I’m looking forward to hopefully seeing what four years without a global pandemic would bring Innisfil.”
With half of her first term being defined by the pandemic, Dollin is thankful for the flexibility of town staff and the adaptability of the community.
“Everybody helped each other out,” she said. “The residents of Innsifil really stepped up and everybody was supporting local. We offered free food delivery for residents and people jumped right on it to help out during the shutdowns. We had neighbours helping neighbours and the response from the community really made me proud.”
Though Dollin’s experience was something she could lean on during her first term, having spent 20 years as a councillor and four more as deputy mayor, she says the last four years have been eye opening.
“You’d think I’d know exactly what I was getting into,” she said. “There was a big learning curve, but what was really helpful was the Association of Municipalities of Ontario, I’ve been involved with them since 2011. There’s 444 of us in the province and whatever issue or challenge we have there’s a chance that one of my colleagues in the province has dealt with it.
"Having that sounding board and understanding there are other communities dealing with similar problems and that we can learn from each other was huge, especially during the pandemic. We also had all three levels of government working together during the pandemic which is the first time in my career I’ve ever seen it. We often like to think our issues are ours alone when in fact there’s many others dealing with the same issues.”
Fostering those relationships with other municipalities and Barrie-Innisfil MP John Brassard and MPP Andrea Khanjin has been “critically important” in planning the future of Innisfil says Dollin.
“Why would you reinvent the wheel when someone has already invented it? When you look at larger municipalities that have seen the growth and growth pressures long before us, learning from them and asking them what they would do differently can only help us,” she said. “You have to keep the lines of communication open and work with everyone.”
Something Dollin has been most proud in her first term is the ability to create a strong team-oriented environment with council.
“At our last meeting, Councillor (Bill) Van Berkel announced he isn’t seeking re-election and he said that it’s the best council he’s had to work with, and he’s been on council since 1994,” she said. “That made me so proud because so much of it is about working together. A mayor only has one vote, it’s about finding that consensus and I’ve always preached debate passionately but when the vote is taken you leave it at the table. Doing that helped us move through a lot of contentious issues and as a municipal government we have more impact on daily lives than any other level and so we take a lot of responsibility in our decisions.”
Moving forward with major infrastructure projects, like the Innisfil Creek drain and Innisfil Beach Road, and beginning new initiatives have been key over the last four years for Dollin as the town prepares for an expected population growth of over 40,000 by 2051.
“All the planning for the growth we know is coming is critical as far as making sure our community is ready,” she said. “We started the Innisfil DMZ, and our economic development strategies have been working really well. We also started the Innisfil Community Foundation, we launched that just before the pandemic and they were able to help so much. We’ve dedicated land for a future hospital.”
Dollin preaches the importance of recovery, community safety, smart development and growth and hopes to continue in on those pillars if re-elected.
“We received funding from the province for COVID that we know isn’t sustainable going forward,” she said. “We need to focus on financial sustainability. We also need to move forward on key initiatives from the community. We know traffic calming is huge and we’re working hard on that. We also want to make us a place as opposed to a space by getting services closer to home, like a hospital and a GO Train station. We’re working on our land and lakes policy right now to ensure the residents of Innisfil can enjoy their lake. There’s lots of pieces in motion and we need to move the yard stick on those major projects.”
As the municipal election inches closer, Dollin looks at it as a perfect time to re-set and refocus on what the community wants to see from its council.
“People are paying attention during election time and a lot of the mandate for the next council will be decided by the voters,” she explained. “What we try to do is hear what the issues are from the people in the community and then the elected bodied moves to find solutions and strategies for what’s most on people's minds.”
