Sarnia's Mayor is reflecting on a challenging 2020 for the community, and is calling for optimism, patience and kindness as we head into 2021.
Mike Bradley said COVID-19 made for a very difficult year, but he's hopeful we can learn from the experience and emerge even stronger in the new year.
"I think, for many of us, 2020 has felt like four or five years combined into one," said Bradley. "When the announcement was made that we were going into an emergency on March 18, I think at that time most of us believed that it would be for a few weeks and we'd recover quickly. Obviously, that wasn't the case and we went through many stages of emotion in this community. We lost 28 lives in the community because of COVID. But, we've emerged from it, and we understand better of what we need to do in 2021."
Bradley said while the pandemic will likely continue to be a major story, we can't lose sight of other important local issues.
"We have a strong economy as it relates to real estate and development and we have a number of major projects underway, like Bayside Mall, the Devine Street redevelopment, and many others," he said. "At the same time, we're really cognizant of the fact that small businesses and restaurants have suffered greatly in this past year. Hopefully as we go into 2021, we can do everything we can to move forward and they can get back to their normal operations."
In 2021, Mayor Bradley is optimistic that the province will step up and help our area as it relates to addictions.
"It doesn't deal with the need for a long term facility that we need and hope to get, but it'll put us in a much better situation."
He said it will put us another step closer to getting a long term detox facility.
Bradley believes the county has done a good job in working with the Inn of the Good Shepherd and Rivercity Vineyard to address skyrocketing homeless numbers, and that will continue to be a focus.
He's hopeful that the COVID vaccine will put us in a position to lead more normal lives by the summer months.
