With the Oct. 26 municipal election drawing near, Sudbury’s business community had a chance to meet and network with municipal election candidates at a public event Thursday. “It gives people an opportunity to kind of move around the room and have chats that are a little less formal, little more casual, little less debate-scary,” said Liana Bacon, CEO of the Sudbury Real Estate Board, one of the event partners. The event was hosted by the Greater Sudbury Chamber of Commerce at 363 Car and Social Club on York Street. That’s not only a venue for social events; it’s also a storage space for top-tier cars. Those luxury vehicles provided the backdrop for Thursday’s event. Instead of speeches or debates, the event provided the local business community a chance to connect with municipal election candidates to chat about issues and priorities. “We thought this was an opportunity to involve the ward candidates, as well as the mayoral candidates,” said chamber president and CEO Marie Litalien. No time for debates in every ward “We don’t really have the time to do debates in every ward, so we thought this was an interesting way to try something new to engage our members so that they can talk about some of the challenges and their priorities.” According to the chamber, all municipal election candidates were invited to the event, with 41 attending, including five mayoral hopefuls. “Our members are concerned about safe, clean and vibrant communities in commercial areas, in particular, not just the downtown, but other areas of town as well. It’s a recurring theme,” Litalien said. “We’ve talked about it a lot and will continue our advocacy on that matter.” One of the other partners of the event was the Downtown Sudbury BIA. “Having conversations with all the wards -- drug addiction, homelessness is an issue not just downtown, unfortunately,” said BIA treasurer Dan Guillemette. “There are encampments throughout the outskirts, as well, and throughout the forested areas. That’s a concern for the BIA.” Bacon said a lot of their advocacy work has been around the HST and development charges on new development. “Those things are impacting the municipality,” she said. “So, it’s good for us to be able to connect with people and have those dialogues and hear what they’re saying. Then have the opportunity to talk about our position on it.” As the race continues to speed toward election day, candidates have a little more than three weeks left to earn votes.
