As 2016 nears its end, South Bruce Mayor Robert Buckle says he's happy with what the municipality accomplished this year.
He says one big announcement this year was huge for local workers.
"One big thing I'm really happy about is the announcement of the Gay Lea expansion here. They're going to spend about 60 million dollars on a new expansion."
Buckle says without the expansion, the plant may have closed, putting 80 local employees out of work. Now, they are guaranteed their jobs while gaining more employees in the process. Looking toward 2017, Mayor Buckle says a number of things need addressed in the municipality. One thing stands out for the mayor though, that he'd like to see get fixed.
"Over at the town of Mildmay, there's only one route in from the West end, and to go all the way around by the concession roads, it is quite a distance."
Mayor Buckle says his concern is that if that road ever closes, it would hinder the emergency vehicles ability to respond to that area, and he'd like to see another route created to get to that section of roadway. With 2017 coming, municipalities are also trying to work out their budgets and make up for lost provincial funding. Mayor Buckle says the budget for next year is going to be challenging.
"We'll probably have an increase but I know it's going to be a real challenge just to keep that at say 3 percent. Just with everything skyrocketing, and we have so many senior citizens, it's challenging."
Mayor Buckle says it is difficult to raise taxes on people that are already struggling with rising costs across the board, but municipalities have to find ways to make ends meet, which gets harder every year.
