By Anne Finlay-Stewart

Hockey has been a huge part of Brian O'Leary's life, but he has always had an interest in that other sport - local politics. Now that he has the time, he has come off the bench and joined the team at Owen Sound city council. "Sometimes it's better to get involved than to sit back and complain," he said in an interview.

Recently O'Leary has observed that the Owen Sound council did not have a good chemistry, didn't seem to get along. "I see the council as a team, with the mayor as the captain. Just like in a hockey team, it is extremely important to have a strong captain."

O'Leary grew up with Ian Boddy, Owen Sound's new mayor, and he has watched him on council as a first-time councillor over the past four years, taking his time and learning. O'Leary feels Boddy will "absolutely" be a good mayor because like all good captains, "he doesn't have a huge ego, he has a team-first attitude."

The first piece of business, says OLeary, will be building that team, "creating chemistry and learning the ropes." He understands that there is a lot to learn, and is fully aware of the time and challenges ahead. "First we will learn the processes, then the issues will take care of themselves.

During the campaign, O'Leary spoke of getting the opinion of all the residents of the city, possibly through email or Facebook polling. He cited the transit discussions as an example of the limitations of public meetings for gauging the opinion of the population. "Every one of the people attending those meetings was a transit user," was O'Leary's view."How do we know how the rest of the taxpayers felt about spending that money?"

Concerning the new budget that will be on the council agenda over the next few months, O'Leary said his approach, generally speaking, would be to "change the way we spend. If we are spending a ridiculous amount of money on something, is it benefiting the greatest number of people?"

O'Leary understands that he is entering a marathon, and if the campaign was the warm-up, he looks forward to "the real stuff" ahead.

Anne Finlay-Stewart is Community Editor of Owensoundhub.org. She can be reached at [email protected].