The Town Manager — Louise Villandré was barely a year out of high school when she first took a job in the diminutive Hudson Town Hall in 1970. According to long-time locals, it wasn’t long before she was essentially running the place. “I guess it’s true, in this town, the buck stops here,” said Louise.
Never one to question any mayor’s edict, she diligently went to work to determine the best way to uphold Mayor Michael Elliott’s decision to move to ban cosmetic pesticides. Working without the benefit of a law degree, she ultimately wrote bylaw 270 that withstood four legal challenges all the way to the Canadian Supreme Court in 2001.
When threatened with lawsuits by lawn chemical companies, she stood strong from the beginning. “I told them, ‘You want to go to court with this?’ I said, ‘Sure, I’ll go to court. Sure.’” Her steely resolve ultimately made North American history, but in Hudson she’s still the same hometown heroine who’s been in charge for nearly four decades.