In the last term of council, a clear division became very evident within both our council and our community. Despite campaign commitments to heal the divide, it has only widened during this term of council. I will lobby to have the council create an action plan and effective measurement to both realize and monitor the improvement of the current situation.

 

The current level of discourse within the community can lead to disruptions occurring in public meetings and more effective opportunities for productive public input needs to be investigated and implemented. One idea I plan to promote is that each of the five elected councillors would have a regularly scheduled 3-hour time frame every month where members of the public could schedule an appointment to meet with a member of council to discuss any suggestion or concern. This would result in 15 hours per month to facilitate public input. The responsibility of each councillor would be to document the resident's concern or suggestion, determine if it will be forwarded to the appropriate department head or brought before council and to ensure that there is appropriate follow up with the resident. Council cannot always resolve a resident's concerns or act on their suggestions but we can always listen, look for improvement opportunities and provide timely follow up.