Call Paul: I'm Running for Mayor of Belleville

Today, I officially filed my nomination papers to run for Mayor of Belleville. But I didn't want to start this campaign standing behind a podium just telling you what I think. I wanted to start it by giving you a direct way to tell me what you think.

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So, I’m giving out my phone number. It is 343-296-PAUL. That’s 7285.

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Residents can text it, or you can "Call Paul." Sometimes I’ll be able to answer it myself. Sometimes it’ll be someone on our team. Sometimes you’ll get voicemail. But every message gets listened to, and what people tell us gets published. You shouldn’t have to know someone at City Hall to be heard by it.

I am asking everyone in this city two simple questions: What is great about Belleville, and what would make it better?

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I believe people already know what would make this city better. The job of a mayor is to get out and talk with people, go and find that out, be honest about what you heard, and then do something with it.

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My wife Janeen and I chose Belleville in 2018. We live in Old East Hill, and we care deeply about this community's future. You might notice that I am not launching today with a finished, polished platform. That is completely deliberate.

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I’ve spent 35 years in senior leadership, including roles as a Chief Operating Officer and co-leading a non-profit consulting firm right here in town. Experience has taught me that the fastest way to get something wrong is to think you know the answer without asking anybody. I have opinions. What I don’t have yet is a few thousand conversations with the people who live here.

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So, before voting opens this fall, our campaign is committing to three things:

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• We will reach every neighbourhood we can in Belleville and Thurlow, on foot and at community events.

• We will share back what we are hearing as we go, not only at the end.

• We will publish a public report by Thanksgiving about exactly what residents said, and what I will do about it.

 

Anyone can say they’re listening. Sharing it is how you prove it. And if what people tell us changes my mind about something, that goes in the report too.

That exact same discipline should apply to how City Hall spends your money. The City already publishes a performance dashboard, but much of it still reports 2024 figures. Measuring whether something worked can’t be a webpage we built once and stopped updating.

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We need to be asking: What are we spending? What are we trying to achieve? Did it work?

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You can’t go back and grade spending that never had a goal attached to it, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. What I can do is make sure it changes. Under my leadership, every proposed increase should come with a stated purpose and a way to measure it. If we can’t say what it is meant to achieve, it shouldn’t go in.

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Our campaign name is meant literally: Build. Better. Together.

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Build means we have real work to do. Better means we care whether it worked. And Together means people get a genuine say in what comes next, not a survey they never hear about again.

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Thank you, Belleville. Let's get to work. I look forward to your calls.