400 people turn out for Keffer launch

The mayor’s race in the BWG election is blowing fresh air across what in the past has been a personality contest. Rob Keffer started his campaign by challenging his opponents to not take money from companies outside of BWG or from developers. He also challenged them to post, online any donations received as the campaign progressed. In the past a lot of developer money was involved in the BWG elections and one can see when reviewing the list of campaign contributions from previous elections.

Keffer has also set the tone by publishing papers on the important issues in town instead of the usual list of bullet points. He says what he is going to try to do and how he is going to try to do it and asks for help and feedback from resident. He often says that together we can make BWG a better town. The other candidates have just published bullet points.

Keffer is running a campaign based on what he calls “Smart Growth”. He talks about keeping debt down, reviewing budgets line by line, and making developers pay their fair share. He says that growth should benefit existing residents as well as future residents and that it should make sense from a sustainable perspective.

The result of this approach is that people are flocking to support him. His campaign team meetings have had close to 100 people attend. His kick-off barbecue had more than 400 people attend and every day more people are calling to donate money, put up signs and help where they can.

It is nice to see a municipal election based on issues, fixing past problems and moving forward in a smart way instead of the usual personality contest, empty promises, and mudslinging.

AWARE Simcoe board member Meade Helman is the social media coordinator of the Elect Rob Keffer Campaign.