Incumbent London mayoral candidate Josh Morgan says if re-elected, he’ll direct $1-million a year from the city’s Municipal Accommodation Tax (MAT) toward the Downtown Master Plan for the next decade. On Friday, Morgan held a campaign announcement to announce his proposal to tap into some of the municipal tax on hotel room stays to cover $10 million of the $48 million, 10-year plan approved by a majority of city council in June. Morgan said he would seek other ways to fund the remaining $38 million, “We have an economic development reserve fund (at city hall), we have the capacity to fund this in ways that are innovative and creative, and we continue to find new ways that are not property tax related.” However, mayoral candidate Susan Stevenson questioned the proposed use of hotel-tax revenue. “I would be interested to hear what the hotels have to say about that,” Stevenson told CTV News. “We’ve only got two-ish million a year, of which $1.6 million is already going towards the Canada Life Place (expansion) repayments for the next few years.” Stevenson, who did not support the plan when council approved it, still questions its priorities. “There are 58 initiatives, $48 million over ten years. We need to do the basics. Londoners want a safe downtown, and they want parking, and that’s what private investment needs,” she asserted. Morgan is also proposing an expansion of the Office to Residential Conversion program that provides financial incentives to offset some of the costs of transforming office buildings into apartments. He said a second steam utilizing federal Housing Accelerator Funds will focus on smaller heritage properties, such as the Wright Lithographing Building on Wellington Street. The redbrick building owned by Farhi Holdings has been vacant and boarded up for years. Morgan said, “We will create a new stream (that’s) dedicated towards small scale office to residential conversions and a specific allocation for heritage assets.” Incumbent councillors Shawn Lewis, Skyler Franke, and Peter Cuddy flanked Morgan at Friday’s announcement. He added that incumbents Paul Van Meerbergen and Hadley McAlister had to cancel, but supported his downtown funding proposal. Morgan was also joined by Coun. Steve Hillier and Coun. Jerry Pribil who are not seeking re-election. He characterized the presence of so many municipal politicians at this announcement, and other campaign events as a sign of his collaborative approach, “The mayor has one vote on council. A mayor cannot get things done without the support of their colleagues. A mayor should not be thinking about overriding colleagues. They should bring them together with plans that work and plans we can all get behind.” Stevenson suggested Morgan’s support from incumbent candidates would mean more of the same at city hall. “These are the same councillors that have supported illegal drug use in our shelters and our highly supportive housing and our social housing. The same ones who voted for the $500,000 to $800,000 BRT bus shelters,” she said. Both candidates say they offer voters different approaches to leading the city. “A good leader will move forward and address concerns together and not ignore them,” Morgan said. “I’ll pull together broad coalitions and we’ll get things done as a team. And that’s a completely different approach than my opponent has.” Stevenson replied, “Whether it’s ending illegal drug use, taxes at less than 1 per cent, coordinated road construction plans, or transparency, its (vote for) me or the status quo with Josh.” A complete list of candidates running in the municipal election can be found on the City of London website. Election Day is Monday, Oct. 26.
