Thomas Svob Campaign Goals
Good Governance
The responsible, transparent, and accountable management of (financial) resources and public affairs. It establishes a framework where decisions are made fairly, corruption is minimized, and the needs of society are met efficiently and sustainably.
Sound Financial Management Practices
Promote new financial management techniques to reduce chronic annual tax levy increases. To ensure Town's resources are best used to benefit the Town's stakeholders.
Communication, Transparency, Trust
Building a foundation of trust through open communication, having transparency on the issues and striving to meet commitments.
Participation:
Residents and property owners should have a voice in decision-making.
Transparency:
Decisions and information must be directly accessible and understandable to those affected by them. This requires clear, open processes regarding policies, budgets, and government votes.
Responsiveness:
Our municipal government should serve all stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe, balancing competing interests to benefit the entire community.
Consensus-Oriented:
Good governance requires mediation of differing viewpoints to reach a broad, long-term consensus on what is best for the community as a whole. The community is made up of residents, property owners and persons conducting business.
Effectiveness and Efficiency:
Processes and institutions must produce results that meet society's needs.
Accountability:
Decision-makers in government must be answerable to the public.
Equity and Inclusion:
Every member of society should feel they have a stake in the community and are not marginalized.
Rule of Law:
Legal frameworks must be fair and enforced impartially.
Tom’s Action Plan for Good Governance
Participation: Establishing a quarterly "Town Hall" series. Tom will be hold one-hour face-to-face meetings for Pelham residents to discuss issues, share updates, and answer your questions directly.
Efficiency & Accountability: Bring sound fiscal management to Council. Tom will challenge escalating spending and advocate for transparent controllership to stabilize tax levies and protect our common resources.
Inclusion & Outreach: Ensuring no resident is marginalized. Tom will improve advance notice of policy changes and actively seek community feedback to build a true consensus on Pelham’s shared future.
Living Within Your Means
Strive to consistently spend less than you bring in. Prevent repetitive annual trips to the taxpayer to ask for more.
Active Budgeting & Cash Flow Tracking
Know exactly where your money is coming from and where it goes. Know and predict this in advance so you can live within your means.
Constantly remember you are being trusted with other people’s money.
Tom’s Action Plan for Better Financial Management Practices
Promote Accountability: Improve budget to actual council expenditure reviews by requiring comparisons of actual spending with budget targets and explaining deviations.
Promote Multiple Year Financial Planning Horizons: Require cash flow outlooks for multiple year time horizons providing visibility to future surplus/deficits. This will encourage better decision making by the Mayor and Council.
Improve Budget Development and Resulting Tax Levies: Walk across or continuity reviews taking us from current year actuals/forecast to the new year budget explaining deviations and justifying changes. This ensures the new year budget is connected with actual performance and not built upon last year’s wish list.
Mid-year financial performance update including a forecast on year-end finish. This will allow both a check on how the town is performing and become the foundation for next year’s budget.
Introduce a “Value Improvement Program” to search for and execute upon opportunities to save spending and/or enhance benefits obtained.
Benchmark other municipalities, or businesses, to find best practices and improvement ideas.
Post implementation reviews on a project basis to highlight learnings and process improvements. Manage your debt to support multiyear endeavours that provide long term benefits. Ensure robust project cash flow forecasts are performed.
Strive to Bring Tax Levies in line with inflation and call out specific spending that exceeds this goal to ensure a transparent review at council and for our decision maker - your Town Mayor.
You need a stronger financial voice to advise the Mayor. Mayor and Council directly control 45% of your property tax bill. Our Mayor will soon also represent another 45% being your Niagara Region tax bill. Thus 90% of your tax dollar representation will reside with the Mayor and directly or indirectly with our council and town administration.
Emmett Street "Fold" Development: An example of how not to consider your stakeholders when rolling out new rules.
College Street / Emmett Street Reconstruction Project: In a low trust environment communication, outreach, dialogue are paramount.
Chronic annual tax increases, transparency on financial performance. How to marginalize costs by slicing into small digestible pieces.
Tom’s Action Plan for Better Communication and transparency leading to building trust.
Establishing a quarterly "Town Hall" series. Tom will be hold one-hour face-to-face meetings for Pelham residents to discuss issues, share updates, and answer your questions directly. Encourage other council members, and administrative staff, to do the same. Measure council face to face time with residents and other Town stakeholders.
Outreach and communication: Encourage the Town to develop electronic means for proactively reaching out to stakeholders to inform them of an issue that may be of interest to them. This could be a service that flags issues by geography and topic. Whenever the Town publishes an announcement, it will have to select what topics it covers and what geographies. Then a simple txt or email to say come have a look.
Guidelines for paper communications to residents. This will include greater time periods between actual mailings and event occurring. For example, a three-week window between a mailing and a meeting of interest to the public.