Ward 3 deserves a councillor who already shows up.
Alasoba built a countywide community organization with no title, no budget, and no one’s permission. Now, she is asking for a seat at the council table.
She's not a candidate learning the ward. She's a neighbour who has been doing the work for years.
Alasoba arrived in Orillia in 2017 with two children and one suitcase. Within four years, she’d turned a small online group into the Orillia and Area Black Community Association (OABCA). Through OABCA, she has organized community festivals, galas, and a support network open to families and everyone. Nobody appointed her to do any of it — she simply saw a need and met it.
That’s the habit she’d bring to council: see the gap, develop the solution, and see it through — even when the work isn’t glamorous.
Arrives in Orillia from Nigeria with her two children and enrols at Georgian College.
Graduates Child and Youth Care, and as elected student VP leads the Orillia campus first Black History Awareness Week.
Founds the Orillia and Area Black Community Association, which now serves families across Simcoe County.
Receives the County of Simcoe Community Champion Award at the tenth annual Newcomer Recognition Awards.
Four things I would work on from day one.
The four, in order:
- Housing the people already here can afford
- A coordinated answer on homelessness, addiction and mental health
- Every tax dollar explained in plain language
- A ward built for the families moving into it
Each one is set out below: the problem, and the part of it a Ward 3 councillor can actually move.
Housing the people who already live here can afford
Orillia has already identified city owned sites that could carry social housing, and the County of Simcoe has a ten year housing and homelessness strategy on the books. The councillor’s job is to stop those files from quietly stalling: move the zoning and permitting changes that let purpose built rentals and gentle density get built, and hold the city to a public timeline on every site it owns.
A coordinated answer on homelessness and mental health
Homelessness, addiction and mental health are County and Provincial files, but people live them on Orillia streets. I have spent years connecting families to services that are hard to navigate, and I would bring that to the table: show up at the County with Orillia’s numbers, insist our share of housing and support funding lands here, and back outreach that connects people to help rather than moving them along.
Every tax dollar explained in plain language
For 2026 council approved a 1.48 per cent tax levy increase, roughly twenty dollars a year for every hundred thousand dollars of assessment, alongside more than fifty one million dollars of capital work. Restraint like that only holds when somebody asks the boring questions out loud. I will ask them, vote on the record, and explain afterwards in language a working family can follow.
A ward built for the families moving into it
West Ridge keeps growing and the services have to keep pace. That means safe walking and cycling routes to Orchard Park and Notre Dame, transit timed to when parents and students actually travel, field and ice time that matches the number of kids signing up, and youth programming that gives teenagers somewhere to be. I trained in child and youth care. This is the file I know best.
Ward 3, up close.
The newest part of Orillia, and the fastest changing
Ward 3 sits on the west side of Highway 11 and takes in West Ridge, where much of Orillia’s new housing has gone up. Townhomes and single family homes keep filling in around the schools, the fields and the trails, and two councillors represent all of it. Growth is not the problem here. Growth without the services to match is.
West Orillia Sports Complex
Two ice pads and roughly twenty seven acres of fields and trails. For a lot of Ward 3 households this is what a weekend looks like, which is exactly why ice time, field time and upkeep belong on the council agenda.
Schools, and the walk to them
Orchard Park Public School and Notre Dame Catholic School serve the ward, with secondary students heading to Twin Lakes and Orillia Secondary. Sidewalks, crossings, lighting and bus timing are small line items that decide whether a parent feels safe letting a ten year old walk.
Your ballot has two Ward 3 names on it.
You vote in the ward where you live, so Ward 3 residents choose two councillors plus the mayor. Advance voting days, polling locations and the identification you need are set by the City Clerk and published at orillia.ca.
There is room for you in this campaign.
Knock doors for one afternoon, take a lawn sign, make a few calls, or simply tell a neighbour why you are voting. Small help, multiplied across Ward 3, is how a first time candidate wins.