Get On The Omnibus — A new Vision for Owen Sound. #GetOnTheOmnibus

Walk downtown on a cold evening and you can feel it: too many dark windows, too few places to warm up, no public washrooms, not enough signs that someone’s looking out for all of us. Even City Hall—beautiful as it is—doesn’t always feel like the welcoming front porch of our town. With winter coming, we don’t need speeches. We need basics you can see.

That’s what the Omnibus is about. It’s a simple way to start doing the obvious things together, right away: open public washrooms 24/7, keep 2nd Avenue and our downtown streets and back alleys safe, clean and well-lit, help move attainable homes from planning to move-in-ready, and make it easier to find a doctor and wraparound primary care. Nothing fancy—just the small, steady work that makes a place feel like home.

It also means no more “someone will look into it.” By establishing a Community-led Vision 2050 Leadership Team - with shared leadership and decisionmaking, each priority will have a team to take the lead— in addtion to the Mayor, the co-lead may be an expert partner from the Ontario Health Team, Indigenous Health Care Services, SOS, Four Counties Labour Planning Board, Bruce Power, Public Health, YMCA, United Way, O’Share, or another local group.  Priority teams will report every 3–4 months about what worked, what didn't, what changed and what’s next. If something slips, we say so and fix it. You’ll be able to see the whole thing on a simple public report-card page, and you can add ideas or offer a hand. And when your tax bill arrives, you’ll see a plain-language snapshot: what you paid, what you got, and the difference it made— including photos and written in plain language.

As for our “unfixable” tough problems—they can be fixed. Not every time. Not for everyone. But more often than not. Because most of us know someone, or have been that someone, who’s had a rough patch—lost a job, savings, family, or a loved one. Too many of them are just kids who grew up here. When life tilted, the support every kid needs just wasn’t there.

A city-plus-community partnership lets us line up care, housing, and day-to-day support so fewer people end up in the ER just to stay warm, and so families, seniors, and small businesses can feel proud of downtown again.

This isn’t about being loud. It’s about a city being both kind and practical. Keeping the lights on downtown, keeping the streets clean and welcoming, making it easy to find help, and easier to know our neighbours and watch out for each other.

Before the snow flies, let’s get the bus rolling.