Blind River Mayor Sally Hagman took the opportunity this week to visit the town’s five schools and talk with students about what it means to run a municipality and what they would like council to do as far as local attractions.
Thursday morning, she was at Blind River Public School talking with Grade 4 to Grade 8 students about the role council and town employees play in running the town and noting suggestions from students about what they would like to see in town.
It was a hectic week of student meetings with the mayor visiting two schools Wednesday and three on Thursday.
The meetings were in advance of the week-long Local Government Week slated to start next week and aimed at making Ontario residents more aware of what councils and their staff do in their individual communities.
The Blind River Public School students fielded a number of questions after Mayor Hagman talked about what the town does. She talked about services provided by the town such as water and sewer, OPP, fire, library, street maintenance and improvements. She also spoke about parks, arenas, cemeteries, walking trails and the marina and lakefront amenities.
She also gave kudos to the work done by all of council and town staff to keep the municipality running.
If there was one wish students would like to see was the creation of a splash pad which the mayor noted she had already received similar requests from her previous two school visits and noted she is likely to bring to the attention of council when she reports on her meetings.
The students also inquired about the mayor’s chain of office which she wore at the meetings. Hagman told the students the chain had the names of all the town’s previous mayors since it was created as a town in 1906.
The students were curious about what the mayor thought of first being elected to the top political post and how she found the job. Hagman responded that she was surprised about being elected in 2018 and that she enjoyed the job and meeting people, especially students.
Students also asked about the town getting more businesses such as a toy store and theme park similar to the rides set up at the annual community days cancelled for the past two years due to the pandemic. A downhill ski hill was also an ask from a student.
Mayor Hagman said such venues would be considered by council if a business decides to build in Blind River.
On the issue of Blind River building a pool, the mayor noted a pool is restrictive due to the high cost of maintenance compared to taxes collected from its 3,600 residents. There was also a wish for a movie theatre which the mayor said the town is currently looking to find a person to operate it.
Dog parks and cat parks were also mentioned by students.
Mayor Hagman said she enjoyed the meetings she has had with students.