Boshcoff Makes Inaugural Address To City

Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff, now official following a swearing in ceremony Monday evening at Thunder Bay City Hall, is wasting no time getting started on leading the city. In his inaugural address to council, staff and the guests who packed the gallery, he laid out several priorities one of the first addressing jobs and the economy, the city’s growing homeless situation and being an active player in the upcoming mining boom. Specifically when it comes to mining Boshcoff, speaking to reporters after his speech, has a very optimistic and dedicated view.

“We are poised to really be in a very successful year ahead, and I want to be active in making sure that they choose Thunder Bay to set up.”

To tackle that opportunity as well as the other issues Boshcoff says he and council needs to be “firing on all cylinders” adding that the city has people in place and all that needs to be done is to “turn all the engines on”.

“You have to have money to fuel all the projects if you want to have a social conscience, you gotta have industry working here and so with the amount of interest we have from mining industries, in particular that are real and quite live projects. I wanna make sure they really do set up here.”

In his speech Boshcoff noted the increased population that is not included in any official census, he says that number is roughly 20 thousand, who use various services in the city, that the city does not receive funding for.  He says it is difficult for the city and its taxpayers to shoulder an extra 1/5th of the population, but he has a plan to address that.

“I’m going to make those pitches, first to our provincial representatives and our federal representatives, and then we are going to lobby the ministers, the premier and the prime minister because the area we service is gargantuan so I’m not asking for anything free, I’m just saying our police are over stressed, our hospitals are crowded so we need help.”

Boshcoff also addressed the large staff to resident ratio for the city, noting going into a budget year there isn’t much money available, but he wants to address the situation with a level head.

“It’s not going to be slash and burn, but we are going to have to be frugal and we are going to have to tighten our belts there is no ifs, ands or buts, because the money trees….the leaves have fallen off.”

In addition to tonight’s swearing in ceremony council also passed its first official vote to determine the list of acting mayors for the next year.