London Mayor Matt Brown gave his annual State of the City Address on Tuesday morning following a tumultuous year at City Hall.

During the address, Brown highlighted the successes in London in 2016, but not much tying them to direct actions by city hall.

But there were no big job announcements, no new initiatives from the mayor's office either.

The mayor's review of the past year touched only briefly on the controversies that plagued the second half of 2016.

"We must not be distracted by the headlines, we must not get discouraged by the setbacks," said Brown.

Brown stuck to the strategic plan set two years ago by council.

He talked about the need for action on poverty and housing.         

Brown made his Rapid Transit pitch, but there was no announcement on funding. He says he will "continue to fight" for money.

He also thanked business leaders participating in the Economic Roadmap.

As for the Air Show, Brown says it will be back this year "bigger and better than ever.”

 

Afterwards, councillor Josh Morgan was frank, saying the mayor missed an opportunity to directly address the integrity commissioner's report into the affair with councillor Maureen Cassidy and other controversies.

"The way to move past those is to address them head on, and it would have been nice to have addressed those during the speech," said Morgan.

"Listen, I think we have had a challenging year, we have stuck together and will continue to stay focussed on our strategic plan," said Brown.

This morning’s address was at the London Convention Centre, with the doors opening around 7:30 a.m.

Just last night councillors recommended launching an investigation into last year’s budget dispute with police. At the core of the investigation would be whether or not the Mayor should have forwarded a potential budget compromise to council in February.

Perhaps the most notable challenge for the Mayor this past year, came up when it was learned he had an affair with the Deputy Mayor Maureen Cassidy.

Both Brown and Cassidy took unpaid leaves of absences, and have since returned to work, insisting that city business was not affected by their relationship. It was determined that they both violated the City’s code of conduct three times.

In past years the address’ have included job announcements or highlights of coming infrastructure plans such as rapid transit.

Daryl Newcombe will have full report on tonight at 6 p.m.