Strathroy’s Colin Grantham plans to throw his hat in the ring for the position of mayor during this fall’s municipal election.
The Melbourne native will be submitting his nomination papers this week, with plans to hold an official launch event following the June 2 provincial election.
A former Torstar director of production and regional sales manager for FujiFilm, Grantham first announced his intention to run in March, and said feedback since that time has been overwhelmingly positive.
“When I started this I said wanted to talk to people. So I’ve gone out and talked to an incredible amount of people and people have encouraged me to run,” he said. “And my initial gut reaction about what’s going on in the community has been borne out by talking to people – there’s a level of frustration out there.”
“That emboldens me to keep moving, to run for mayor.”
Along with speaking with local residents, Grantham said he has also been following council more closely.
“I’ve been watching council even more. Before I had an impression at the 30,000 foot level, I’m now at the 5,000 foot level now, so I have a greater understanding of what’s happening and what the issues are.”
One of the key pillars of his upcoming campaign will be transparency, Grantham said, and he noted the recent controversy regarding the proposed mandatory $17,500 sewer charge for Mount Brydges residents living along Queen Street simply underlined many of his original concerns about incumbent Mayor Joanne Vanderheyden.
“I don’t want to talk about the … correctness of the overload, I want to talk about how the issue evolved,” he said.
“CTV London shows up in Strathroy to talk about the Queen Street overload. The mayor made herself unavailable to talk on-camera about the issue, which speaks to a lack of leadership,” Grantham continued. “In the middle of that interview, Deputy Mayor Richards got a call from the mayor, informing him that they had made a decision to not charge the Lions Club, which was a good decision … and hold off on the charge to the citizens of Queen Street.”
The apparent ad hoc nature of the decision stuck with Grantham, he said.
“What’s important about that – and it goes to the crux of why I want to run – is how was this decision made? If this decision was made between the mayor and staff, that’s absolutely wrong because it was council’s decision to make,” he said.
During the 2018 election, Vanderheyden won 4,587 votes, with second place finisher Bra Derbyshire getting 1,131 votes and third place finisher Brad Bock securing 332 votes.
The municipal election takes place on Oct. 24.