Miranda Rocca-Circelli

Six-Point Accountability Platform

01

Restore the Office of the Auditor General

Greater Sudbury had an Auditor General. Council voted unanimously in closed session to eliminate the office, effective December 31, 2025. Ron Foster had served in that role since 2015 — providing independent oversight of city expenditures, contracts, and operations, answering to Council, not to the administration he was reviewing. At the time the office was closed, he had audits queued for 2026 covering the city's long-term financial plan, recreation services, water services, and planning services. None of that work will be completed.

The Auditor General's role is not bookkeeping. It is the mechanism by which Council holds itself and its administration accountable for how public money is spent and whether city operations deliver value for taxpayers. That oversight function now does not exist in Greater Sudbury. No other office in the city's governance structure carries that authority.

If the Auditor General's office had remained open, residents would have independent, verified numbers on the Events Centre and the Cultural Hub at Tom Davies Square — their actual costs, their contracts, and whether they were delivered as Council approved. The office also has authority to examine conduct and administrative behaviour — whether city processes and procurement decisions meet the standards Council itself has set. Without it, the only check on administration is administration itself.

I will restore the Office of the Auditor General as one of my first acts as Mayor. The office will be independent, properly resourced, and its findings will be reported publicly. As Mayor I will also look at the role of the Auditor General through the lens of my campaign — as I have been speaking with residents across every ward, the number one concern I heard was accountability. People want to know where their money is going and why decisions are being made behind closed doors. Restoring this office is the most direct answer I can give them.

02

Restore Meaningful Local Decision-Making in Every Ward

Since amalgamation in 2001, too many communities have lost their voice. Decisions that affect your street, your neighbourhood, and your town are made at a central table — without the people who live there. That changes under my administration.

I will assign a dedicated Ward Administrator to each ward — drawn from existing city positions reallocated to where they are most needed. Each Ward Administrator will support a Ward Advisory Group made up of local citizens, helping to identify priorities, review ward-level budgets, and draft proposals that go to your elected Councillor for Council consideration.

I will also establish a new Office of Township and Rural Communities — a dedicated department to ensure that smaller communities, former towns, and rural areas have a named advocate inside City Hall, not just a line item in someone else's budget.

All legislative authority stays with Council. This model gives communities a seat at the table — without removing the accountability of elected representatives.

03

Roads and Aging Infrastructure Come First

Sudbury's roads, water systems, and core infrastructure have been underfunded for years. New development announcements do not fix a pothole on your street or a water main that is decades past its service life.

Under my administration, the capital budget will prioritize the repair and renewal of what we already own before committing to new builds. The 1.5% special capital levy — approved by Council for road asset renewal — will be used for exactly that purpose. I will bring a motion to ensure that levy cannot be redirected to other projects without a full public vote.

Infrastructure investment will follow a ward-by-ward needs assessment, not a downtown-first default. Every community in Greater Sudbury will know where they stand in the queue — and why.

04

Transition City-Owned Facilities to Community Hands

The City of Greater Sudbury owns and operates approximately 600 facilities. Many of them would be better served — and better maintained — by the community organizations that already use them.

I will create a structured process to identify city-owned facilities that are candidates for transfer to nonprofit organizations, social enterprises, and community groups. The goal is not to abandon these spaces — it is to put them in the hands of people who are most invested in keeping them alive and serving their communities.

Every transfer will include a community access guarantee. These spaces will remain open to the public. The city will stop being the landlord of buildings it cannot properly fund, and communities will gain real ownership of the places that matter to them.

This frees up city resources to focus on the infrastructure the municipality must own and operate — and cannot hand off.

05

People, Housing, and Social Infrastructure

Homelessness, housing, seniors, and community services are not soft issues. They are fiscal and moral ones. A city that does not take care of its most vulnerable residents is not managing its budget — it is deferring the cost.

My approach is built on partnership rather than direct city ownership and operation. The city is not the right entity to run shelters, transitional housing, or rehabilitation programs. Nonprofit organizations and social enterprises are. What the city can do is provide the conditions that make those organizations viable — including the provision of city-owned buildings, property tax relief, and targeted subsidies where they are needed most. The operations stay with the community organizations. The city provides the platform and removes the barriers.

As an immediate priority I will commission a full review of how existing homelessness funding is allocated, which organizations receive it, and what outcomes are being achieved. That review will inform a revised budget allocation that prioritizes shelter capacity as a first response. Transitional housing and rehabilitation programs will follow the same model — nonprofit and social enterprise led, municipally supported through building provision and tax relief, not through direct city operation.

On downtown safety: enforcement measures will be sequenced behind real increases in housing capacity and shelter availability. Visible enforcement without housing options is not a solution. It is displacement. The two must move together.

On seniors: I will commission a full operational and financial review of Pioneer Manor with results reported publicly. I will expand outreach for the property tax deferral program so that fixed-income seniors across every ward know it exists and know how to use it. Rural seniors will not be an afterthought. Within my first year I will deliver a specific action plan built around their reality — isolation, limited transit, and services that were designed for downtown, not for Levack or Wahnapitae or many of the towns and wards.

On community voice: I will establish independent citizen advocacy groups in key areas of city life — not bodies that report to the Mayor, but groups with a public platform and a direct line to Council.

"People ask me how a municipality addresses homelessness when it is a provincial file. The answer is that we already are — we are spending public money on it right now. What I am asking is whether we are spending it well, and whether the people closest to the problem are the ones running the programs. Nonprofits and social enterprises do this work better than municipal governments. My job is to give them the tools and get out of the way."

— Miranda Rocca-Circelli

06

Community Resilience and Emergency Preparedness

Greater Sudbury already has an emergency management plan. What it does not have is a plan that reflects the unique needs of every community within this city — and the spring 2026 flooding made that gap impossible to ignore.

When flooding hit in 2026, residents in outlying communities waited three months while the province activated the Disaster Recovery Assistance for Ontarians program. That delay was not inevitable. It was the result of a system that treats Greater Sudbury as one community — when in reality we are dozens of communities, each with different geography, different infrastructure, different vulnerabilities, and different populations.

Within my first year, I will convene a Mayor's Emergency Preparedness Committee made up of citizens, community leaders, first responders, public health representatives, and vulnerable population advocates. It will be a public-facing body that reviews the existing emergency plan ward by ward, identifies gaps specific to each community, and produces a public report with clear recommendations within 12 months.

Communities that will receive specific attention: rural and single-road-access communities, seniors living alone, people without vehicles, francophone communities, Indigenous communities within Greater Sudbury's boundaries, and former municipalities whose emergency infrastructure has not been updated since amalgamation.

Emergency preparedness is not a budget line. It is a promise — that when something goes wrong, no community in this city will be left waiting because no one planned for them.

For Greater Sudbury Municipal Mayoral Election — October 26, 2026