Michael Glass

My wife and I moved to Kingsville to start our family in 2007. We moved to Kingsville for its small town feel, beautiful downtown, amazing restaurants and (at the time) affordable housing. Much has changed in the last 15 years and it has changed more quickly than I think anyone could have imagined. I have had the opportunity to speak with many residents who feel that much of the development over the past few years has been forced through with no clear vision of what the people living here want for Kingsville. I would love to hear from the business owners and residents of Kingsville and use their input to create a long term vision. What does Kingsville look like in 25-50 years? This would help to set goals and build a plan to allow for the controlled expansion of our town. I would also like to consider options for affordable housing, and look for ways to preserve our agricultural land and wetlands, while looking at ways to improve traffic flow, and access to our lakefront.

I feel that this is extremely important! Many people in our community do not feel that their ideas and opinions are being heard or taken seriously. I feel it is the job of ALL elected officials to listen to their constituents, as they work for the people of the community. I think it would be great if we could organize a few meet-and-greet or open house events throughout the year where the community could engage with the Mayor, Deputy Mayor and Members of Council in person in a non-formal setting. Also, much like we are seeing with this group, social media is a great way to communicate and groups like this could be created on all platforms.

I feel it would be beneficial to sit down with the greenhouse owners in our community to get a better understanding of what they are currently working on, and what can be done to further resolve the issue. I know many of them personally, they live in Kingsville and want to be good neighbors but feel their requests to meet to discuss the light issues were overlooked in the past.

Thank you for the question. I am sure many people feel that government inappropriately divies up funding, I am no differrent. However support for various sectors, whether it be for the larger agriculture picture, greenhouse specifically or the most supported in our history, the auto sector, happens for good reason. I would also like to note that these greenhouses are farms. Arguably, they are the most advanced form of farming, but they are farms nonetheless. I am not aware of any national government that currently treats their greenhouse sectors as anything but farming. I believe that most governments support their agricultural sectors, and given the need to secure and solidify our food supply for the future, I am doubtful that we’ll see this change anytime soon. All that said, my efforts would be focused on working with greenhouse owners to ensure that these farms include more community friendly elements in current and new development. (E.g. working together on a solution for light pollution).