After 16 years, Martin Ritsma will soon say goodbye to city council.
“I’m so grateful that I was able to build relationships with council, with staff, across municipalities close-by, but certainly across the province in many different entities.”
Ritsma finished third in the mayoral race with 2,899 votes and said there is disappointment at not being able to continue serving city hall, after a lengthy tenure.
The retired educator served as a city councillor after elections in 2010, 2014 and 2018 and was also deputy mayor for two of those terms before being elected mayor in 2022.
Robert Ritz (4,246 votes) beat runner-up Jo-Dee Burbach (3,738 votes) by 508 votes in last month’s municipal election.
Mark Hunter and Andrew Rae received 2,542 and 206 votes, respectively.
Ritsma defeated Ritz in the 2022 mayor race by just 345 votes.
While there are several milestones he will fondly look back on, Ritsma said he is especially proud of bringing the GO Train back to Stratford, helping to create a building and planning department, progressing on infrastructure, reducing city debt and opening the warming centre last year.
“We came out of COVID when we started this term in office, and you see the return of Stratford Festival numbers almost pre-COVID. The growth in manufacturing and quality jobs in this community, just exceptional. We sat at the lowest unemployment rate in the country at 3.6 percent…those are all wonderful things.”
Ritsma wants to stay focused on his mayoral duties until the new council is sworn in Nov. 14.
He thanked city staff for their commitment to Stratford.
