When Oakville council kicks off its new term on Nov. 21, it won’t look much different from the old council.
The mayor and 11 of the 14 councillors around the table will be returning for anywhere from their second to their seventh term.
Four of those returning councillors – Tom Adams, Janet Haslett-Theall, Cathy Duddeck and Ray Chisholm – were acclaimed, meaning they avoided the election completely because no one ran against them.
But there will be three new faces around the council table.
Both Ward 7 councillors are new to the role, with Nav Nanda upsetting incumbent town and regional councillor Pavan Parmar and Scott Xie stepping into the town council role vacated by Jasvinder Sandhu.
Jonathan McNeice will now serve as the Ward 1 town councillor after beating out incumbent Beth Robertson for the job.
We connected with Oakville’s three newest municipal politicians to hear their thoughts as they prepare for their new roles.
Jonathan McNeice
An urban planner who lives in Bronte Village with his wife and young son, McNeice says running for council was a great experience.
"How often do you get to knock on everyone’s door in your community and strike up a conversation about how can we make things better and what are you happy about and what are you concerned about?" he said. "It’s almost a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
He ran on his expertise in planning and the goal of "getting growth in the right place" – a goal that clearly resonated with Bronte area residents concerned with an increasing influx of development density.
McNeice says he’s eager to immerse himself in the planning files and will prioritize developing relationships across the ward and community.
He also wants to move quickly on an election promise to set up a Ward 1 advisory committee.
"I think it’s important that we get ahead of issues and the way to do that is really to be engaging regularly and proactively," he said. "It just starts creating a lot more community trust and goodwill and connections across the ward."
Scott Xie
An educational expert specializing in international students, Xie lives in Ward 5 (between Upper Middle Road and Dundas Street) with his wife and two daughters.
He credits some of his election success to the advance work he did to survey North Oakville residents and learn how people felt about the issues in their community.
"We were able to show that we truly understood what mattered most to Ward 7 voters and have a concrete, actionable and proven plan to address this," he said.
Xie says he’s excited about the challenges of the coming four years and will prioritize addressing the growing North Oakville community’s most significant concerns.
Along with safety issues, including speed limits, stop signs and crosswalks, he’ll be pursuing ways to increase community programming for seniors and newcomers.
He also plans to follow up on his promised open-door policy. He says he’ll be setting up an online booking system and using a friend’s Ward 7 office space to open his door to residents who want to talk to him directly.
Nav Nanda
Nanda says her active community involvement as chair of the parent council at Oodenawi public school and founder of the North Oakville Ward 7 Residents Association (NOW7) made it easy for the community to trust her come election day.
She says she’s eager and excited to get to work on issues like mitigating construction traffic, noise, pollution and dirt, and dealing with traffic issues.
"We have a growing community, a developing community, so of course, there’s a lot of work that needs to be done."
Having campaigned on the need for more infrastructure to balance out the area’s rapid development, Nanda says she will support building the ward’s new community centre as quickly as possible.
She will also work with school board officials in the hope of getting new schools built rapidly, while getting up to speed on planning projects in the area.
"I want to be able to be upfront with the residents about what's to come and what's to be expected," she said.
If you want to meet the newcomers or any member of the 2022-26 term of town council, you can attend a public reception at Town Hall at 5:30 p.m on Nov. 21.
Following the meet-and-greet, councillors will be sworn in during the inaugural council meeting for the term, beginning at 6:30 p.m.