Newly minted Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto tried to strike a balance with her inaugural address Thursday, telling residents the pace of change in the city will likely slow down.
But she did that against a backdrop of what looks to be an ambitious agenda for the next four-year council term.
In an interview after her address and the swearing-in ceremony for the new council, Alto conceded the two notions may appear to be in conflict. But she said she wanted to acknowledge the big plans and ideas that new councillors bring to the table, while tempering expectations of both council and residents for what is possible.
“Everyone that has come to council, all of these new people have very large dreams and goals, and that’s great. But at the same time, we have to be practical about what’s doable,” Alto said.
In her address to a packed council chamber, Alto said the city will tackle everything from creating diverse transportation choices to continuing reconciliation efforts with First Nations, helping to ensure public safety and overseeing economic diversification.
“And we will build housing, we will build housing, we will build housing,” she said.
“It is ambitious,” she said of the list. “And it’s not even complete.”
Alto said there will be time for the new council to “take a breath” and learn the ropes before diving into budget and strategic planning discussions in the new year.
The new mayor’s remarks addressed one of the themes of her campaign, that the pace of change in Victoria has been overwhelming for some residents, and that council’s progress on new initiatives will be accompanied by a renewed focus on governance and the core services the city provides.
“We have to be able to temper the ambitions that we have, the ideas that we have, the big ideas that we have with the reality that [city] staff spend a majority of their time delivering important services,” Alto added later in an interview.
She said there have been immense changes over the last two terms as council responded to crises and a changing city, with a more dense city centre, more active transportation and more focus on what cities can do to deal with climate change. Alto says most residents “have been untroubled by the bulk of those actions.”
“We have an opportunity to very intentionally transform the city into a modern future city for our future residents, as well as accommodating our current residents,” she said. “Those two things could be very much in conflict, but they don’t have to be as long as we’re willing to be practical, realistic, judicious and always looking at the balance.”
Alto said if residents take away one message from Thursday’s speech, it should be that the city is in capable hands with the new council.
While she admits it’s not a grandiose mission statement, she says it’s important that residents understand that no matter what big ideas council may have, it’s keeping an eye on delivering on core services.
“There’s an opportunity to have two things — what we all want to accomplish, that visionary piece with the practicality of the service-delivery piece — at the same time, we want to be able to reinvigorate a sense of civil discourse,” she said. “I really want to project from the mayor’s chair that sense of civility, that sense of tolerance, an expectation of being able to be passionate and disagree with one another, but in a way which is about the issue.”
Alto said it’s her job to set expectations and standards of civil discourse and facilitate civil exchanges.
Meanwhile, of the newly elected councillors who took the oath of office on Thursday, only three — Chris Coleman, Stephen Hammond and Marg Gardiner — opted to swear allegiance to King Charles III.
Alto and councillors Jeremy Caradonna, Matt Dell, Susan Kim, Krista Loughton and Dave Thompson chose not to swear allegiance to the monarch.
