A Melbourne native has announced his candidacy for the mayoral race of Strathroy-Caradoc, set to take place in October.
Strathroy’s Colin Grantham said he is running to become mayor of the municipality, attempting to unseat current mayor Joanne Vanderheyden.
Born and raised on a farm in Melbourne, Grantham left the community to eventually become a Torstar director of production as well as a regional sales manager for FujiFilm. After retiring last year, he moved back to the community and only recently decided to run for office.
Grantham said he will bring a great deal of business experience to the mayor’s seat.
“I have an extensive background in business … and one of my platforms is on leadership,” he said. “We’re lacking true leadership in Strathroy-Caradoc. With my sales background I’ve learned about customer services but it’s always been about leadership, leading and building teams, that’s my strength.”
Asked what made him decide to run for mayor, Grantham said after observing municipal politics for a period of time, he felt transparency and leadership were lacking in the community.
“My initial feeling was to run for council in Ward 2. There were a number of local issues that I saw, but then I began to ask questions,” he said. “And I began to peel back layers of the onion, and I saw more and more. Talking to people in Strathroy and Mount Brydges, I realized there were a lot of issues and … when I began to look closely, all of those issues started at the top.”
“All the issues landed at the feet of the mayor. And one of the biggest issues is with the CAO – there is a lot of dissatisfaction with the CAO (Fred Tranquilli) here,” he continued.
“If you look at the issues in this community, the number one issue isn’t taxes but rather openness and transparency. And that’s one of the things I learned in sales – to look at the need behind the need. It’s not about wanting to close the arena in Mount Brydges or where they want to put affordable housing – all those issues are out there but they’re just a symptom of a greater (malaise).”
While candidates for the municipal election aren’t eligible to file their nomination papers until May 2, Grantham said he wanted to get his name out early so citizens could listen to him and ultimately rally around his candidacy.
“I need to get a team together to win this thing – I don’t want to just be a candidate to create chaos,” he said.
“The overarching issues in the election are open government, transparency and respect for the citizens. Over the past two weeks, people have already reached out to me so I’ve been very encouraged by that.”