After 24 years in the mayoral seat, Dennis Brown has bowed out of the upcoming Atikokan municipal election, putting an end to his 42 years in municipal politics.
Brown, a strong advocate for the community, has several notable notches on his political belt, from upgrading recreational facilities to rebuilding roads.
“We were very interested in upgrading some of our facilities,” Brown said. “We had to upgrade our arena, pool and many streets and build a new town hall. We’ve done the repaving on the airport and we rebuilt parts of main streets.”
Brown said they were also able to get the Atikokan Generating Station powered by the Ontario Power Generation, adding that they are trying to compensate for the lost Caland and Steep Rock mines that closed in 1980, costing the town 1,100 jobs.
“We will need that plant to continue operating,” Brown said. “And now we’re lucky because we also have Resolute Forest Products working over in Sapawe. We worked with them to try and get them to come here. Now they are using wood biomass. The wood for the biomass is important because it helps with climate change.”
Brown also said the BioPower Sustainable Energy Corp. is now using the pellet plant, which is also helping the community.
“The Atikokan Economic Development Committee was a great committee and Gary McKinnon is there; we work with him very closely and do anything to get more competition and people here,” Brown said.
Although Brown is proud to have worked on infrastructure products that have contributed to the betterment of Atikokan, he said the next council will still have high priority agenda items – the first being attracting new businesses and families.
At one time, Atikokan’s population was 7,000, and now it is down to 2,800. Brown said mine closures are the reason for this decrease.
A lot of work still needs to be done on the roads, Brown said, adding that oftentimes in order to fix the road, they have to fix the infrastructure underneath, which adds to the price tag.
“We received $5 million from the government. And we’re going to be working on that. That takes a little extra cost to do it. It costs over $3 million to fix a one-mile stretch of road,” Brown said. “We have other roads that are needed here and hopefully that will have them improved.”
Brown said it was a privilege to meet, learn and engage with Atikokan residents, and hopes to golf more once he has fewer municipal commitments.
“[Being mayor] taught me that the citizens of Atikokan are good people, and they want you to help them,” Brown said. “You have to work for and with the people of Atikokan. One of the main sources of your job is to work with the citizens of the community you’re the mayor of so you can improve things for them.”
