Innisfil Mayor Lynn Dollin, who has been a member of Innisfil council for 28 years, faced her greatest challenge in public service Oct. 11.
That night, South Simcoe Police Service constables Morgan Russell and Devon Northrup were killed in the line of duty, responding to a disturbance call in Innisfil. The community was overcome with grief for the fallen officers and their families. The mayor felt it too, visibly shaken when speaking to the media at the time and even when discussing the issue two months on.
“The tragedy of losing constables Russel and Northrop was just something I never thought I would have to experience,” said Dollin. “I know the whole community just felt overwhelming sorrow for the families and the police service members… It almost feels a bit helpless, because you want to help but there’s not much you could do. But people did show definitely their condolences and are still reaching out wondering how they can help.”
It was a dark moment in a year that saw Dollin returned to office as mayor for a second time, beginning her ninth term in total serving the community in Innisfil.
Her eighth term in general was far from smooth. In 2022, society began to ease its COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and communities across Ontario had to determine how to adapt to their new normal. When the pandemic hit, town staff was forced into agile mode; they made decisions quickly to ensure that the town kept running and Innisfil residents were properly served.
“In some ways, it was easier than go into a pandemic than come out of a pandemic,” Dollin said. “As you’re going in, you’re under an emergency, a local state of emergency act, making decisions through the Emergency Operations Centre. When you’re coming out, when do you come back from hybrid to in-person meetings and what are the expectations of ramping services up again.”
Yet, without the staff, the process wouldn’t have gone as well as it did.
“I hand it to our staff: throughout the whole thing they been so agile and willing do whatever it is that needs to be done in the moment and always with a positive outlook and always with compassion for the community,” the mayor added. “Even going through what we were going through staff was able to move things forward, like the skating trail we just opened last week… and our community fridge.”
The support of the Troy Scott Community Fridge was something Dollin highlighted as a wonderful example of how Innisfil residents have come together to support each other. As food insecurity in the municipality becomes a more pressing issue, she was particularly proud of the hospitality students from Nantyr Shores Secondary School who have taken to creating meals in their classes to fill the fridge.
“They say in a crisis, it really shows your true colours,” Dollin said. “In this case, it did, and Innisfil just shone.”
Now that the crisis has subsided, Dollin is eager to get back out in the community and reignite an initiative started in the previous council.
In 2019, council began holding town hall-style meetings in each ward. This, Dollin hopes, will reach some of the members of the community who aren’t keen to attend a council meeting and share their viewpoint, but would be willing to do so in a small, less formal setting, with just the mayor and the ward councillor.
Local meetings for local issues will help show that all communities are equal in Innisfil.
“Sometimes I hear that, when I’m in Big Bay Point or in Churchill, or anywhere other than Alcona, I hear people say ‘Oh, we’re the forgotten piece of Innisfil,’” Dollin said. “I don’t want that to continue. I want people to feel that they’re not forgotten, and all represented by town council.”
Joining her in five of these meetings will be the five new faces at the council table. Dollin is excited to get down to work with her new colleagues, as well as the remaining three veterans from the previous term. That gives the council a good mix of experience and fresh perspectives, representing the “depth and diversity” of the town.
They’ll face their first test in late January during two days of budget deliberations.
“We’re going to be dealing with pretty difficult discussions and decisions to be made around the 2023-2024 budget,” Dollin said. “We’ve already started – we’ve had around five orientation sessions with the new council – giving them what they need and the background and information the need so they can make informed decisions going forward.”
Another early decision for council will be if it wants to make any revisions to the town’s strategic plan. The current strategic plan takes Innisfil to 2030, but Dollin is eager to see if council wants to make any tweaks.
Getting long term planning right is a tradition she wants to continue. An early highlight for 2022 was announcing the Province of Ontario's support of Innisfil’s request for a Ministerial Zoning Order (MZO) for lands at County Road 4 and Innisfil Beach Road, where RVH is looking to build its south campus.
When Premier Doug Ford came to Barrie to make the announcement in March, he brought $2.5 million in funding to get the planning process started. And while the new hospital is two decades away, Dollin knows that if you never start a process, you never get to where you need to go.
It’s that mentality that needs to guide Innisfil council as it goes through its budgeting and planning processes, particularly as the community prepares to double its current population in the decades to come. It won’t just have to plan, Dollin said, but plan well.
“Just like the hospital, we don’t just plan for this term of council or this year or for next year. We’re planning for 20-30-40 years and what we want the town to look like,” Dollin said. “We have to get it right and we have to make sure that we’re making decisions that are not just good for our council, but for councils in the future.”
To punctuate her point, she turned her view south from town hall down Innisfil Beach Road to the lake.
“The council, whomever it was, that decided to purchase that land on Lake Simoce to make Innisfil Beach Park,” she said. “I’m sure there was controversy about how money it was going to cost, but the (council of the day moved) forward and we’re so grateful now to have had that legacy.”
