London Mayor Brown gives third State of the City address

Mayor Matt Brown struck a positive tone during his third State of the City Address on Tuesday, avoiding the controversies that led to a tumultuous 2016 at city hall.

Around 1,200 people packed into the London Convention Centre for Brown’s third address.

He focused on topics such as London’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis, Western and Fanshawe, and rapid transit. Brown did announce Tuv, a German-based company, is expanding to the city.

“This company tests products for the manufacturing sector and employs over 10,000 people,” said Brown. “The London operation is going to start small with five employees, and we look forward to being Tuv’s gateway to the Canadian and North American markets.”

Councillor Josh Morgan was in attendance on Tuesday and thought Brown would’ve been better served to acknowledge some of the difficulties from the past year, including the mayor’s sex scandal.

“There’s no problem with us talking about the scandal that happened this past year. There’s no problem with us talking about the deficiencies that we’ve had and the tough debate we had around our policies not being accurate,” said Morgan.

“Those are things that are realities and the best way to move past those is to recognize they exist, talk about them, and outline the plan to move forward together.”

However, city councillor Jesse Helmer appreciated Brown’s decision to focus his attention on success stories from the last year.

“I thought the mayor did a good job of recognizing you know the success in London is really driven by all kinds of people in this city,” said Helmer.

“I think it’s easy for politicians to kind of take credit for things or talk about the things that we’re doing, and what I liked about that address was that it was really focusing on the things Londoners are doing.”

-With files from Natalie Lovie