'Municipality should be run like a business’

Vaughn Goettler, an almost-retired entrepreneur, is looking at the way the municipality is run through the eyes of a businessman — and a municipality, he says, is a business and needs to be treated as such.

Deciding to run for lord mayor  was a last-minute decision, when he realized there were only going to be two choices.

He’s especially concerned about the financial state of the town. “I believe that there are things in town that need to be dealt with differently than they have been in recent history, certainly in the past four years,” he says.

“If we don’t change the direction in which we’re headed I don’t think we’ll have the ability to control our own future, because we’ll run ourselves out of money and we won’t accomplish our goals.”

He traces some of the problem to the expensive lawsuits the town has been facing.

As a businessman, he says, “I believe when money is involved there is always a solution, because everyone only has so much, both money and time. But when emotions become involved there tends to be little or no hope for solutions. People are no longer thinking about money, they’re thinking about the greater good or the greater bad, depending on your perspective.”

If you jump into a lawsuit without speaking to the opposition, without seeking compromise, “you don’t get to understand all the opportunities to reach an agreement. The agreement may not be perfect, but if you’re not talking, except through legal channels, that’s like firing a nuclear warhead and then expecting somebody to come back and say ‘I didn’t expect you to do that. Let’s talk.’”

If the municipality isn’t run like a business, spending more money than revenue, “it’s going to get worse, and we are not in good shape.”

While he has never been a politician, in the business world he has certainly demonstrated leadership skills, he says.

“In order to run a business, you must have people who believe the business will be successful.”

They have bills to pay, “and if they don’t think you can lead the business in a direction that’s successful they won’t follow you, they’ll choose to go somewhere else.”

In the last eight years, Goettler says he has built the largest privately-held heating and air conditioning business in the country, with more than 1,000 employees, who seem quite happy to be there. “We have no problem attracting people and retaining them. It’s amazing when people  are accomplishing things and they know it, they’re accomplishing it as a team, its not like working. It’s fun to be working at something you feel good about. If it’s not working, if you’re not careful, you disengage people, and they can’t wait to get home at the end of the day.”

The town, he says, appears dangerously close to that, or at least that’s what he’s hearing.

“The feedback I’m getting is we need a change.”

Four years ago he was disturbed by the way things were going in town, and he hoped for change with the 2018 election. Now he’s hopeful the next election brings change, and an opportunity to get the finances of the town back under control.

Over the past year, he says, several people have encouraged him to run, and he has said “it’s not going to happen.” But that has changed. “When I saw there were only two candidates for mayor, I decided if I don’t stand up and be counted, I have no right to criticize.”

One of the solutions to the town’s financial problems, he says, is to increase revenue that stays in town, without a high percentage going to the region. That leads him to tourism, “taking it to the step,” without adding to the traffic and parking issues.

One of his thoughts of increasing revenue is building agri-
tourism on local farms, maybe by assisting the farming community over time to become a destination through offering Michelin-star farm-to-table meals, that would keep young people in town, giving them jobs and building a sustainable farming community. 

A few large parking areas, with hop-on hop-off shuttles, is working in the U.S. and elsewhere, “and they’re beautiful.”

They could be offered free, or at a reasonable price that would increase parking revenue, he says, adding it’s not going to happen overnight but is something that could be built up over time. “Why wouldn’t we do that to help ourselves?”

His other issue is the other communities, having plans for Virgil, Queenston, St. Davids and Glendale. “We can’t just dump everything we don’t want in Glendale. And why can’t we have contextual zoning so houses have a commonality, to return to the quaintness of NOTL?”

He is also concerned about young people in town. Parents of the more established families are very concerned about losing their kids to Toronto or Hamilton, where they can find jobs, he says. “If they can’t find jobs, if they can’t live here affordably, we’re driving them out.”

Goettler says he fears the direction the town is going is not looking to the future. “It’s muddling with the present, and it’s not working.”

“I don’t have all the solutions,” he adds, although building agri-tourism could be one, “but people are having families, and they want them to survive and thrive. It’s our job to make sure we’re providing for them.”