This has been his second term on council, after winning a seat in 2018. And he pointed out he has knocked on over 1,000 doors this campaign. He added, “I knock on doors and talk to people. And they seem to love that.”
We asked Herbert the motivation to seek a third term on council.
“I’m born and raised in St. Thomas. I saw the issues. I saw the good and the bad. I grew up with them. But I had a good background to start with. I just didn’t jump in to run for council. I was executive for Softball Ontario, past president of the YMCA. And I was chair of St. Thomas Energy, which is Entegrus now (the city’s utility provider).
“And I managed the X-ray department at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital. And one of the big things I took away from that was budgets. You really have to have a good solid understanding of how budgets work.
“I had some mixed emotions about running for the third term, but I had a good chat with your Mayor Joe Preston. I thought, with Joe retiring, I need to stay around because we got a lot of stuff on the go, and we want to keep this momentum going. I support what we do for the city.”
“One of the biggest things that I did in my third month on council was I campaigned for a satellite police office downtown. What do we have now? Our 10 special constables.”
We asked Herbert about the 6 per cent increase in the municipal property tax rate for this year.
“For the last six years, the increase has averaged between 2 per cent and 3 per cent. This year, the police services come in with a 22 per cent increase in their budget. And so it comes to council, and we realize that the police haven’t had anything really in six years. Maybe this is the time to do it.
“We started at almost a 10 per cent increase for the budget if we’d accepted everything the way it was. We had some hard sessions on it, and we got it down from almost 9.8 to 6.2 per cent. We felt that was pretty reasonable.
“But, it’s something we’ll have to work on for next year. We’ll have to work with the leadership team. I don’t think anybody’s going to be too excited about a 6 or 7 per cent increase on the budget, including me. I pay taxes too.”
What are his priorities for a third term on council?
“We talk about our transportation. Okay, our ridership is about 8 per cent. And we know we had a big master plan for transportation. And we sent it off to a consultant. We know we need more buses. We know we need more routes. We know we need more operators. But what does that cost?
“What I found was a transportation app. You put it on your phone or iPad. Everything you want to know about that bus is right here. So I think that’s going to be a mind-changer for people who want to ride a bus.
“The Westlake-Evans Park has been fantastic by the library. We put in that children’s centre across the street. We did the hospice. We’ve needed it for years. And it all costs money. And we partnered with the YWCA for two different buildings now. We have a great strategic plan that we work on every year. We just don’t shove it in the drawer. It’s a workable plan.”
He wrapped up by paying tribute to the outgoing mayor.
“I can’t say enough about Joe Preston, our mayor. He was a mentor to me. We both came on at the same time. His heart is as big as the city.”
Written by Ian McCallum
