Former Mayor Panciuk announces he’s not running for Mayor, criticizes Ellis, wants to ensure there’s time for a competitor to emerge

Listen in to the Lorne Brooker Show tomorrow at 9am on CJBQ 800 AM or online anywhere in the world.

I will be addressing my intentions for the Belleville Mayor & Council elections this October.

There are lots of rumours and speculation as well as much encouragement. I will be happy to clear everything up and appreciate Lorne Brooker Show and Lorne Brooker for providing me with the opportunity.

Mitch Panciuk on Facebook

Reactions to the post

I wouldn’t see re electing Mitch as Mayor a change. He was mayor previously. What Belleville needs is a forward thinking, economic driven person. Not the same thing recycled over and over.

Time for a complete new group to run city. The past mayor’s had their turn including mitch but things never changed just got worse. Time for big changes

Oh I hope he does not run, one and done for Mitch.

Say it isn’t so! You tried using “Strong Mayor Powers” before that was even a thing. No thank you.

Need new blood not old ways .let someone else try you gave it a try a few years ago stop milking the machine.

I hope there are more mayor candidates because I really don’t think you did well as mayor and wouldn’t even vote that way again.

You got slammed out of office harder than any candidate in my lifetime. Between your obvious ethical issues and your past behaviour around the horseshoe, I think Belleville has had its fill of you…

Better than the liberal we have now. We need someone that is going to actually look for solutions on things like the homeless issue in Belleville. The current mayor likes to point fingers and blame everyone else but doesn’t bother to look at solutions we use in the city. That is just one of the many issues.

Wow! What a massive ego you have mitch. Wasting 20 minutes of air time, to tell people you are not running for mayor? In the grand scheme very few people care. VERY few. Sounded much more like a crusade against Neil. He beat you mitch. You need to let it go! Further, you should get over yourself. You are not as important as you imagine yourself to be. Try some humble pie. Man, what a massive ego !!

Lorne Brooker Show

Our first guest gave me a call and said: “Lorne, can I have a few minutes on your show today?”

And I said “Why?”

And he said: “I would like to make an announcement”

And I said: “Okay, this is exciting, what’s going on?”

And because of his former position we said yes.

Lorne Brooker

Good morning Lorne and thanks for having me on. It’s not so much making an announcement, but to clear the air on some things, so I appreciate you giving me the time.

Mitch Panciuk

Lorne pointed out that Panciuk had 3 paid positions:

• CEO of Ontario One Call
• Board of Directors for Hydro One
• Owner of Boston Pizza in Belleville

and said that people are asking ‘why he would want to be mayor, then?’:

Panciuk responded:

I understand that in politics there’s always some people that are happy with the outcomes and some people that are unhappy and certainly after 2022, there was a little bit of ‘we’re not happy with the direction the city is going’.

I think over the last couple of years that certainly has gone up. People have expressed a level of disappointment – not just people who voted for me in the last election, but also people who voted for Mayor Ellis – that the direction of the city doesn’t seem well.

The answer to that age old question – ‘is Belleville better off than it was four years ago?’ I think most objective people would say ‘no’.

Our taxes are higher, some services are lower, our quality of life is not as good. We seem to be focused on the wrong things and we’re not moving the economy. We see more and more people moving away. When we go to events, we see less and less of the regulars.

And where I had really worked hard to make it so that Belleville wasn’t a stop along the 401 for gas, we’ve sort of gone back to that.

It’s picked up a lot in the last little while, and I just wanted to clear the air and say: I am not going to be a candidate for Mayor or for City Council in the elections this fall. As you said, I’ve got a lot of things I’ve moved on to that I’m doing, but I did want to give people an opportunity – those that are disappointed, those that want a change in direction. I want to ensure they have time to identify and support a candidate who can put Belleville back on the right track and move us forward in a positive way.

Mitch Panciuk