HaltonHillsToday is profiling every candidate in the upcoming municipal election. Up first - Ward 1 (Acton) councillor candidates.
Ward 1 Councillor Jon Hurst was born and raised in Halton Hills. He has watched his native Acton change a lot over the years, but a recent change weighs on his mind more than others.
Skyrocketing house prices have altered the landscape of the local real estate market when it comes to affordability, with housing for seniors and first-time homebuyers being a key area of concern for Hurst, along with assisted housing.
Speeding in the community also tops the list - a topic Hurst said he receives numerous complaints about from local residents. He, and the rest of his council colleagues, passed a bylaw creating several new community safety zones. To accompany that, many streets in Halton Hills have had their speed limits lowered to 40 km/hr.
Hurst is an electrician by trade and the very landscape in Acton speaks to this. On the far end of the peninsula in Prospect Park is a bandshell. Hurst, along with many other people, helped bring the project to life, putting his skills to use on electrical installation for the structure. The name of his late wife, who died of cancer in 2000, is on a plaque next to the bandshell.
With climate change looming large in Hurst's mind, he has long been a supporter of efforts to reduce the community's carbon footprint. He was an early advocate for sustainable building design and the use of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards for the construction of Town buildings.
As chair of the Accessibility Advisory Committee, addressing “deficiencies in municipal infrastructure” has also been grabbing much of his attention.
“Upgrades to door entrances where you had the sliding doors rather than having to manually push a door open - a lot of those were funded through our committees.”
The lifelong resident is also known in the community for his decades of work with the Acton Terry Fox Run Committee.
Hurst was first elected in 2003. His wife had recently passed away and he was spending quite a bit of time at the cemetery. He said he noticed that his and other people’s flowers on graves were being removed. He inquired with the Town and discovered this was happening due to restrictions on what could be left on a grave site.
“I was basically told that these are the rules and you've got to live by it. So I thought, ‘Well, maybe it's time to change the rules.’”
