Mayor Van Bynen's "New" Election Platform (Its not like the old one)

More and more people are becoming frustrated with the lack of leadership from incumbent mayor, Tony Van Bynen. 

In my case, I am concerned with the Mayor's lack of direction. 

In his 2010 campaign, it seemed that he had a defined plan for our town.  But just three years later, he has scrapped all of his 2010 ideas and replaced them with something else. 

In this week's Era advertisement, Mayor Van Bynen speaks about "Broadband Internet", "Development", "Jobs", "Southlake Hospital" and "Taxation."

Not one of these items were on his radar during the last campaign. 

At that time, his platform included:

• Health
• Bringing a Post Secondary Education Institution to Newmarket
• Newmarket as a Regional Centre
• Advanced Manufacturing
• Arts and Culture

So why the 90-degree turn in such a short period of time?

Certainly the three years in office since 2010 have been tough on the Mayor. 

1.  Businesses of all types, but especially manufacturing have left resulting in significant job losses
2.  We have heard that there are serious budget related issues at Southlake Regional Health Centre which could mean further job losses
3.  York Regional Government is at risk of a rating downgrade because of the unprecedented amount of public debt accumulated during the past few years
4.  And the feather in the cap for Newmarket's "Arts and Culture", the Old Town Hall has devolved into a mess of cost over-runs. 

The Mayor had a hand to play in exacerbating all of these problems (in addition to serving as Mayor, he also sits on the Southlake Board of Directors).  While I don't forgive him for causing the current situation, I can understand why the Mayor wants to throw in the towel.  He has given up.

But why is he dropping the Post Secondary Institution dream? 

The Ontario Government has plans to open more colleges and universities and as recently as this summer, Mayor Van Bynen was publicly speaking in favour of Newmarket hosting a new school, (as is East Gwillimbury). 

It would seem to me that pursuing a post secondary institution would bring significant financial benefit to our community. 

Before asking us to support him on his 2014 re-election bid, shouldn't we expect the mayor to explain to the community why he has dropped all of his 2010 campaign platform?