Thank you members of Council for your inaugural remarks; I would now like to say a few words.

It is my honour and privilege to continue to be the Mayor of my hometown, Port Coquitlam. For the past 23 years I have worked to make Port Coquitlam a better place, over the past nine years as a member of your local government.

When I was growing up I never envisioned myself in politics, I was not part of the student government at Terry Fox Senior or at SFU. However, when the opportunity presented itself, I was blessed.

I quickly learned that to be successful in politics you need the support of many people.

I thank God the opportunities he has presented me, he has provided me with the knowledge, wisdom and grace to lead. The church that Erin, Madison and I attend, Riverside Community Church and our Deeper Life Group have been an unbelievable support group. For me, this would not be possible without them. Thank you.

To my family, thank you for your support, help and unfettered encouragement for Erin, Madison and myself.

Finally, I want to thank Erin and Madison.

Madison is a wonderful child, full of grace, understanding and love.

Erin, is not only an unbelievable support, she is also my campaign manager. Which can provide some unique challenges, however, we work so well together it is an awesome team. With over 100 volunteers helping out, multiple flyer drops, signs, gatherings and many campaign details, she is amazing.

There were many times that we leaned on each other for support and encouragement. Thank you.

It is hard to believe it's been three years. Over the past three years we have a lot to be proud of. For me the number one goal three years ago was to rebuild our community pride, PoCo Pride. I said we would need to work together, hold townhall meetings, and build trust with our community partners.

I said that this could not be done by one person, it would take a strong council, dedicated staff and a willing community.

Over the past three years we did just that. Through working with our community, service groups and thinking outside the box, we engaged our community and worked together to make our community more inclusive. And in 2010, the Union of BC Municipalities recognized our new way of governing with the Best Practices for Civic Engagement.

However, we cannot rest on our past success; we need to continue to push the envelope.

We recently completed our Corporate Strategic Plan, where over 1300 stakeholders outlined a new vision for our community. The result is a vision that inspires our community, it says:

Port Coquitlam is a happy, vibrant, safe community of healthy engaged residents and thriving businesses supported by sustainable resources and services.

This vision starts with a happy community. This seems simple enough, however, over the past five decades North Americans have become less happy. Prior to her passing, Mother Teresa commented on the North American society, she said she had never seen such poverty of spirit, of loneliness, and being unwanted.

Over the years as we work harder and longer hours, spend more time in traffic, we are forgetting about what it means to be happy and successful.

We need to develop s society who is looking out for others, not just themselves. Plato said that life is best lived in the pursuit of knowledge through dialogue and in exchanging opinions with others. In the book Politics, Aristotle comments that humans develop their virtues through social engagement, respecting others opinions.

In essence we must work together, challenge each others’ thinking but most of all we must be engaged in our community. It is our job as your local government to set the table for these discussions and create the form for our community to get engaged.

Engagement goes beyond discussions, it is about providing opportunities for our children and our youth to participate in sport, arts or volunteer, for our seniors to stay active, for our council to demonstrate that government can have a respectfully debate. Through providing opportunities to participate we will be creating a happier and healthier community.

To create a community that is connected and engaged we need to look at the fundamentals of our physical surroundings and how our surroundings affect our daily lives. It was Jane Jacobs, the famous urban planner, who said in her book The Death and Life of Great American Cities. "the trust of a city is formed over time from many little

public contacts... The sum of such contact at the local level is a feeling for the public identity of the people, a web of public respect and trust, and a resource in time of personal or neighourhood needs". To me this describes our PoCo Pride, we need to make Port Coquitlam a home where everyone feels welcome and loved.

One theme I heard over the last two months on the doorsteps, chatting with residents at local coffee shops and online was the need to be financially prudent and to do everything we can to cap our property tax rate, as it is reaching a tipping point. Over the past three years we have worked hard to keep our taxes as low as possible. Two years ago we conducted a core service review which resulted in a $770,000 savings annually, without affecting the level of service.

Further, we continue to win the Government Financial Officers Association award for transparent financial reporting. However, we need to go further, in order to keep our taxes low.

There are two ways to achieve this goal, first and the most important, is to increase revenue. The second is to reduce the costs of service. I see this as our number one challenge over the upcoming term. We will need to look at our budget in a new light, we will need to work with our stakeholders, including all of our talented staff, service groups and the business community. We will look to other communities across North America for best practices.

We will need to place an emphasis on increasing our revenue through making it more attractive to do business with our city and in our city. In January 2012, we will be launching a Mayors Task Force on Business Development Opportunities. This task force will research and make recommendations to Council by the end of 2012. The task force will be led by members of council and will include members of the Chamber of Commerce, BIA, and the development community. They will look at all aspects of how our city can work with businesses better. This will also form the foundational work for an Economic Strategic Plan that will start in 2013.

We will also work to strategically provide the provincial and federal governments opportunities to partner with Port Coquitlam. We will no longer willingly accept downloading, that is not accompanied with adequate financial resources. We are fortunate to have two great representatives who are working with us, our MLA Mike Farnworth and our MP James Moore, thank you for your support and friendship.

And we will continue to highlight the need for the Evergreen Line to come to our community.

We will also ensure the recently sign RCMP contract between the Federal and the Provincial Government meets the needs of our community. We will ensure accountability and financial management are in place.

Three years ago, my first official meeting was with the Chief Cunningham and the council of our neighbors the Kwikwetlem First Nation. Chief Cunningham has been replaced by Chief Giesbrecht, and over the past two and half years we have been working together on mutual items of interest.

Over the past ten years we have delivered solutions to our traffic problems, this was capped off by the opening of the Coast Meridian Overpass last year. This has allowed our residents to get home after work faster to be with their families, allowed businesses to deliver products and services more effectively. However, we cannot rest on our success, that is why we have started a new Master Transportation Plan that will emphasize the movement of our community through all forms.

We need to shift our attention to meeting the needs of our community regarding our parks and recreational infrastructure. There's a need to build additional artificial fields, expand the Rec Centre to include more multi-functional space for our seniors and residents who seek a healthier lifestyle as well as to create more ice time. We need to also look at how we address our aging Centennial Pool that has been enjoyed generations of PoCo children.

Now, more than ever, we need to partner with the Federal and Provincial governments, Kwikwetlem First Nation, the Board of Education, service groups, sports, arts and cultural organizations, businesses and our faith community to deliver what is required for our residents to live a happy, vibrant, safe and healthy community.

I know we are up for the challenge and I welcome everyone to come together to make our community, Port Coquitlam, the best place to raise a family, work, play and retire.