Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman returns to city hall after provincial election

After stepping away for three months to focus on a run at Queen's Park, Barrie Mayor Jeff Lehman is back in the saddle at City Hall.

"It's exciting to be back," Lehman said ahead of Monday's council meeting.

The three-term mayor was defeated in last week's provincial election by 609 votes to incumbent Doug Downey in the riding of Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte.

"It was a difficult couple of days for sure," he noted.

Lehman said he'd spent a lot of time reflecting on his campaign and is putting the provincial election behind him to solely concentrate on his role as mayor.

"I got up this morning and thought about some of the things affecting the city. Some of the things I ran on and felt were important in the provincial election, and I have an opportunity here to hopefully move things forward," he said.

The long-time mayor will now serve what he said would be his final term after pledging to walk away from the mayor's chair no matter how the election turned out.

Lehman hopes to tackle issues such as housing and homelessness, two topics that he believes are a top priority in Barrie.

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At Monday's meeting, Lehman said they would address a motion that was changed last week regarding homelessness and panhandling and hear deputations on ways to handle the situation.

"Council last week debated and quite substantially changed a motion on homelessness and panhandling," said Lehman. "I think the first motion was very ill-advised from one member of council, but fortunately, council took a different direction."

Council will also converse on upgrades to Heritage Park, which Lehman called a "major project."

"To take that park built 35 years ago and update it and add some elements to it."

The 46-year-old reiterated he would stay true to his word and not seek re-election in the municipal election in October.

Instead, he said he plans to spend time with his family before deciding where his political future will take him.