By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
Brome Lake Mayor Richard Burcombe will not seek a fourth term in 2025, he confirmed last week.
“I had already decided, but I hadn’t made it public yet, because I wanted to make sure to be fair to the other candidates and the population,” said Burcombe, a Mansonville native who moved to Brome Lake with his family when he was in high school and served 43 years as a police officer before entering municipal politics. “It’s time now. We all have to read the writing on the wall.”
Burcombe was elected in 2013 on a platform of restoring trust and stability to the town hall. He said he and the cohort of councillors elected that year “came in to a climate that wasn’t the best for the town. My objective was to bring peace and trust back to the community, and we accomplished that; to me, that’s my biggest accomplishment. We hired great people, and I take my hat off to them.
The mayor said he was proud of having made conservation, active transit and infrastructure improvements top priorities. “I’ve had a great run; in the first eight years, we got a lot done, like the two bridges, like the rebuilding of the dam, renovating the Town Hall and the [revitalization of] Coldbrook Park. We are waiting for the [Pettes] Library expansion and then we will be able to do [everything we’ve planned for] the park,” he recalled. “Bringing the Marché public back, [improving] the infrastructure on Victoria Street and Mill Road and Rue Montagne. We got a lot of good things done, and then of course COVID came and that slowed down the dam and certain other things.”
“Navigating COVID was stressful; you couldn’t have meetings, you couldn’t do this, you couldn’t do that, everyone just seemed distracted, and everything slowed down,” he said. Since the pandemic, he and others have observed that interactions between public officials and citizens have changed. “Seven to twelve per cent of elected officials have resigned [since the 2021 election]. That was unheard of – it was because of the way people approached elected officials, a lot of aggressiveness and disrespect. That’s not just here, it’s everywhere.”
Burcombe said his biggest regret was not being able to integrate Brome Lake into the Service de Police de Bromont coverage area, which he said would save the town hundreds of thousands of dollars and ensure better police coverage.
He said one of the things he has enjoyed the most is meeting and helping constituents.
Leaving the mayor’s office “is going to be a chapter that closes,” he said.
“Ever since I was 20 years old, as a police officer, I was in public. I left the SQ at the end of September [2013] and I started campaigning on the Monday after,” he remembered. “I didn’t even get time to reflect on leaving the police – I was campaigning seven days a week and then all of a sudden I was mayor.” After his term ends, he plans to take some time to “relax and wind down” and spend time in his workshop learning to make historically inspired cabinets.
Deputy mayor Lee Patterson has said he is interested in running to succeed Burcombe, although he doesn’t plan to make a final decision on his political future until the new year.