The keys to Châteauguay city hall will be handed over to the town’s newest mayor on Sunday. Incumbent mayor Pierre-Paul Routhier is not seeking a second term, leaving three candidates vying for the position.
They all tell Global News the South Shore suburb has lost its sense of direction in the past four years and they have similar paths forward. One of the biggest issues to the town, home to 40,000 residents, is “the water,” said Alliance Chateauguay Mayoral Candidate Éric Allard.
Lucie Lamoureux, Impact Châteauguay’s mayoral candidate, agreed, saying, “We have a large water problem.”
The drinking water is often brown and there are recurring water bans. Improving the infrastructure that candidates say has been neglected is one of the issues they agree on.
“We need to have a real inspection, expertise about what we need to solve that and put the money into it,” said Nathalie Simon, Citizens’ Action mayoral candidate who also acted as Châteauguay’s mayor from 2009-2017.
The three mayoral candidates say that going forward, there needs to be more citizen involvement.
“We have to reconnect with citizens and reconnect with the employees,” said Lamoureux, who most recently worked in a management role for Châteauguay.
For commercial real estate, candidates say it’s time to convince businesses to fill the many empty spaces up for rent. The Faubourg Châteauguay is supposed to be a shopping centre, but for years, Walmart has sat alone.
“We need to change the zoning there and allowed them to go higher with office, with hotels, with condos. It’s going to be a different lifestyle at that place,” said incumbent city councillor Allard.
Allard and Simon agree that the surrounding green corridor needs to be protected. But where all three differ is when it comes to property taxes.
“We would like to have a municipal rule that will control the tax rate and keep it lower than the cost of living,” said Allard.
Simon said with the cost of living rising, “If you don’t want to raise the taxes, you have to cut somewhere in the services.”
While Lamoureux is against raising taxes, “There’s no more taxes that can be raised, it’s crazy,” she said.
Even though all candidates are running similar campaigns, only one will be named mayor on Sunday, Nov. 7, 2021.