‘Biggest issue facing Wilmot is financial and organizational chaos’: Clive Woolner running for mayor

Clive Woolner is running for mayor of Wilmot, with financial management, staff turnover and communication among his top priorities. Contributed photo

By Amanda Nelson

Clive Woolner is seeking the opportunity to become mayor of Wilmot, he says, to address financial issues, implement solutions to reduce high staff turnover and improve communication.

“When I looked at the candidates running, I felt the skills and experience were not evident to effectively manage the township,” he said.

Woolner has been a lifelong resident of Waterloo Region, where he operated his own business as a licensed homebuilder for 30 years. He also holds a master’s degree in business administration, where he focused on accounting and finance.

“The residential construction business is highly collaborative, bringing together many trades to successfully work together to build and complete the home,” he said.

He says in residential construction, and with his background in business administration, he managed the entire process, from location selection and design to construction completion and customer service.

“This gave me a strong understanding and belief in working collaboratively and taking pride in your work,” he said. “During my Master of Business Administration program, I was widely recognized by the professors as a generalist. I was able to bring together the information from all functional areas and determine the optimal solution to the problem.”

Woolner said he believes the township is struggling with a high staff turnover rate, especially at the higher levels. He said to ensure Wilmot’s long-term success, this issue must be addressed and corrective measures taken to get the organization functioning properly.

“The biggest single issue facing the Township of Wilmot is financial and organizational chaos,” said Woolner. “The organization is struggling and appears to be out of control. The financial statements and the financial information reports are two years behind, which could affect our ability to get upper-tier government grants.”

He continued, saying a lack of transparency is also a concern, and the township must be open to disclosing information in the public interest.

“I’ve heard too many stories of people emailing or contacting the township and never being contacted back,” he said. “Budgets should provide a one-to-four-page summary written in plain English disclosing the number of employees, net transfers to reserve funds and the payroll costs for the township.

“The communication around the design and servicing details concerning the Petersburg Water System can only be described as pathetic,” he continued. “The key point in the original design of the system being a looped system was the number one issue in all presentations prior to 2026 and represented good engineering. The final design dropped the return loop.”

Data centres, farmland, growth and population, as well as economic development, are also top priorities that Woolner plans to address if he becomes mayor.

Woolner plans to work with the township to get financial statements up to date. He says at this time, the 2024 and 2025 financial statements have not been released, which makes it difficult to determine where the township sits financially.

“It’s important to note the 2025 financial statements reflect the 18.1 per-cent property tax increase, which has a major impact on the financial situation,” he said. “As mayor, I will assist the chief financial officer to get the information up to date by working to get her the resources she needs to get us up to date.

“We need to develop a full organizational chart of positions and their pay scales. At present, our CAO makes $55,000 a year more than the Township of Woolwich’s CAO, yet Woolwich has 20 per cent plus larger physical area and about 22 per cent higher population,” he continued.

Wage increases in the township and the low population growth are things Woolner wants to address. He asks why this is happening and why the township has not addressed these basic resident concerns.

“We need to determine why there is such a high staff turnover at the upper levels and address those issues to ensure the long-term health of the Township of Wilmot. This will involve closely working with the CAO to thoroughly analyze where the problems are and develop a plan to correct them,” he said.

“When I decided to run for mayor, I decided I would be entirely self-funded,” Woolner continued. “I wanted to run a cost-effective campaign, be fully committed to the result and, if elected, have no one to return a favour to. Utilizing personal engagement, all candidates’ meetings and a few signs is how I have chosen to get my message out.”

Woolner can be reached by phone at 519-580-3402 or by email at votecliveformayor@gmail.com.