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Beyond the council meetings: Mayor Post on visiting student, making tough decisions, the community’s caring heart

January 15, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Orangeville Mayor Lisa Post encourages students to be volunteers, but only in “something they love.”  

Taking a short time for an interview with the Citizen, the idea was to learn a bit about her day-to-day as mayor and what makes the hard work worth it. 

How she loves going to local schools to talk with students began the conversation, with her saying, “The teachers of most schools invite me to come.” 

While she visits grade three classes, her focus is on the grade five classes because “that’s when the students are learning about government lessons in school. By then, they have learned a little about the provincial, federal and municipal governments.”

She brings them up to date on the differences among the three levels of government, the responsibilities of each, and what the municipality does. History is an important part of what she tells them, why people came and settled here. She thinks it’s important for them to know where they come from.

“I talk about how decisions are made and the democratic process. All decisions are made in council meetings, which are always open. ‘Come to council,’ I tell them. And I talk about their role in the community, that thing they love, whether it’s the environment, the food bank, or the hospital. They should be constantly knowing what’s going on in the community so they’re ready to vote when they’re 18.”

For students in grade five, Post recommends that they decide what they love as volunteers so they’re prepared when they begin their 40 hours of community service in high school.

“They’re not just trying to fill their forty hours – by doing what they love, they understand why it’s important for the community to grow volunteers,” she said. 

Impressed by the students’ response to this, regardless of grade, Post reported that all the kids are so engaged. 

“As soon as someone’s brave enough to ask that first question, all the great questions come,” she said. 

“There was a group of Cubs visiting the Town Hall, and I invited them to ask me any question, but first they had to tell me what they loved about Orangeville, what makes it feel like home.” 

They replied that the parks, the trails, the pool, the skatepark, the libraries, the police and firefighters who are so engaging with them make them feel safe.

This ties in so that when the police, firemen, or the mayor come to visit them in school from time to time, they can see how helpers work together to make a strong community.

Later in the Citizen’s interview, Post emphasized the importance of her connection to the community. 

“I was born in Orangeville. This is my home. But I am not special, I’m just a person in love with this town and the people in it, trying to do my best for the community,” she said.

“Come and talk to me! I want to be as approachable as possible.”  

The success of her approachability often shows up when students speak to her when she’s out having lunch at places like Centre Café. She talks with them about the town’s projects, learning how to make smart, more sustainable cities, and doing well on math tests. She really loves that they want to tell her their stories.

The conversation moved to what keeps her up at night: troubles that are a “really tough part of the job,” she admitted. Recently, she said it’s been the break-ins of three restaurants in town, racist remarks being made to people who are struggling and other matters. 

“It’s terrible when it happens. I’m dealing with people living with poor affordability, and we have to think about how this community can wrap itself around them to support them,” said Post.

“These things are not exclusive to Orangeville, but because we care so much, one thing about Orangeville that is pretty unique (is that) we are a community of people who truly care about each other. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

To illustrate this, she paints a picture: Someone’s dog is missing, and they post that on Facebook. They write, “…and we’re worried because it’s snowing outside.” Right away, people will respond: “Don’t worry, we’ll check in our backyard!” And the dog is found. “If we can apply that ‘lost dog’ thought to the greater community, the majority of the community is still very much like that,” said Post.

“After the robberies, people showed up in droves to show their support for the restaurants. That’s the foundation of how we work through hard times.”

She commented that terrible things do happen, and there’s nothing to be done to completely eliminate them. Her answer is to keep focusing on building a strong community, which is the foundation for getting through these hard times.

The subject moved on to social media, where Post remarked that the danger of using it is that people are fed algorithms that reinforce whatever they believe. If they’re already having negative thoughts, algorithms feed them. 

“I mean, if you’re a positive person like me, I get puppy dogs and kittens,” she said.

This is part of why the mayor spends so much time in the schools and why she spends as much time as she can on social media, keeping it light. She talks about community and the importance of building community, hoping to counteract “some of the other nonsense”. 

She makes good use of TikTok to engage with “younger folks,” knowing they are on TikTok, not Facebook. It is with the grade 10s that she introduces provincial politics, about legislation that actually shapes how municipalities are run. 

They’re concerned about social matters, and she talks to them about her own role: working with the province to shape legislation. 

“The Strong Mayor Powers is something I have pushed back on heavily. It’s an erosion of democracy… It impacts our democracy negatively,” Post said.

In fact, she has delegated all the aspects of power she can to the people who should be doing them, namely, the council and the municipality. A big part of what she does is fighting for things she believes in, with other levels of government that put those things on her.

On a personal note, there was a question on what she’s learned recently or what she’s learned at all in her role as Mayor. She answered, “That’s a tough one. I think that I continue to learn the longer and more that I’m in this role is how strong community really is. And how resilient community really is… it’s a concept that I went into this world saying like I use a slogan all the time, ‘Rooted in Community’ to me is more than just a campaign slogan. It’s something that I use when I’m making decisions.” 

Post added, “It is my intent right now that I will run again in the election next October. I am unbelievably proud of the work that my council has done these last three years, but I know our work’s not done yet… so I would love to have another four years to be able to keep up the work that we are doing.”

Finally, the Citizen asked, “Who was a big influence in your life as a child or a teen?” 

“My Grandfather was Alec Rayburn who was a big presence in Caledon Village, he was a Peel Regional Councillor, he was a schoolboard Trustee and a talented Town Council member,” Post said. “He always talked through my whole life about the importance of giving back to the community that raises you… you could do it in whatever way worked for you. His picture lives in my office at Town Hall because he was such a big influence on how important community is and how important our role in community is.”

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