New mayor of troubled municipality anxious to get to work

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There will be two new faces around the table when the Lakeland Ridges council resumes control of the municipality on May 15.

North Lake resident Leonard Foster was elected mayor of the beleaguered community Monday night, with 229 votes. He will be joined by Dusty Buckingham, who was acclaimed as councilor for Ward 4. One Ward 4 council seat will remain vacant until November byelections.

The municipality has been under provincial supervision since the end of July. A report months later, which was initially withheld from the public, finally detailed why the province stepped in. It painted a picture of dysfunction, finger-pointing, bickering, secret cliques and hoarding of information during the council’s first six months in office.

In November, the province said it was aiming to restore the elected council by the end of February or early March, but trouble appeared to continue behind the scenes as the mayor and two councillors stepped down earlier this year, saying they were frustrated with the continued dysfunction.

The province announced last week it plans to reinstate the council on May 15.

The new mayor says it was hard to sit back and watch what transpired this past year.

“For the love of me, I don’t see why it didn’t work in the first place,” he said. “I am somewhat hopeful that everyone has had a chance to look it over if they had issues and I hope they have had a chance to review their own participation in all of this.”

Foster says he is open to all training offered by the province to help him as he steps into the new role and tries to lead the council moving forward.

“They’ve been off quite a few months now, and I think it is time to see if the elected council and myself can get it back on track and get through the next two years before there is another election,” he said, adding he looks forward to getting “Lakeland Ridges off the front pages for the wrong reasons.”

Foster and his wife raised their family in the Woodstock area before returning to his family homestead in Green Mountain 16 years ago. His family roots trace back six generations on the property they call home and he has spent the last 16 years serving the North Lake area as a member of Eel River Rescue, the fire department, rec council, sitting on the local service district board and two terms as chair, and the advisory committee that began the transition plan.

Foster said he is hoping to set up a meeting with the municipality’s supervisor, Steven Manuel, and staff to get an update before they pass the reigns of the municipality back to the council.

Foster says he will rely on his years of experience as the executive director of Community Residential Living Board in Woodstock to help navigate the new territory of municipal politics.

“Basically, the non-profit board and the municipal council are not too much of a stretch and are pretty much the same thing,” he said, adding throughout his career he has overseen more than 50 staff, a non-profit board and unions, which makes him confident he can help the council navigate their way back to working order.

He plans to retire in July and although he jokes, he could easily “go home to hibernate on my farm,” he admits he’s not ready for that level of retirement.

“This gives me an opportunity to keep doing something and to help out my community,” he said.