What I will do as Mayor of Carling.

A surplus target written into policy. Anything collected above the band comes off next year's levy automatically, instead of quietly joining the pile.

Every dollar of the $8.7 million in unassigned cash gets a project, a cost and a date — or it comes off the tax bill. Today it has none of the three.

Five years running the surplus has beaten the budget. That is a method, not luck. Budget-to-actual published every quarter, with an explanation for any miss over 10%.

Council receives no financial statements at any point during the year. Meeting recordings are deleted after 30 days, and the Township treats its own emails as transient under its retention by-law, so they are not kept at all. Monthly financials posted the same day, and recordings, minutes and correspondence retained and searchable.

On the province's own Sunshine List, Carling pays more for its senior administrator than every comparable rural township around it — $206,678, against $142,813 in McKellar, a township of almost identical size — and combines Chief Administrative Officer, Clerk and Treasurer in one position. Those three are never meant to sit together: the Treasurer reports the money, the Clerk keeps the record of decisions, and the CAO runs the administration both report on. Each is the check on the others, and every peer municipality keeps them separate. Separate the roles here, and publish general government costs line by line.

A large share of this township is reached only by water. Island and shoreline ratepayers pay the same taxes as everyone else and wait longest for a fire or medical response. More fire and 911 response boats, kept in the water and ready at nearby secure marinas, so help arrives from the water as fast as it does from the road. Alongside them, a full dock, ramp and parking plan for each of the major public water accesses, so island cottagers have somewhere to leave the car and a safe place to get on and off the water. With $29 million in the bank, the money is not the obstacle.

All winter the Carling site opens Mondays and Saturdays, Killbear Fridays and Sundays. In summer, when the township is fullest, each site still closes two days. Seven days, both sites, year round — we can afford it. And Council meetings open in person again.

$1.5 million guaranteed, 10.5% of every operating deficit, and one vote in twelve. A published deficit forecast, and the vote-to-cost mismatch renegotiated — or we stop signing.