networking and collaborating

Eagle Place Neighbourhood Association
Our family has lived in Eagle Place, an older area south of the downtown core of Brantford, for almost four decades. Our children attended Bellview and Joseph Brant Schools, and many families from Eagle Place sent their kids to Pauline Johnson Collegiate where I taught high school for many years. Eagle Place has produced many community leaders over the years, and today it reflects some quite serious challenges related to re-use of old industrial sites, neighbourhood renewal challenges and proposed development on flood plain lands. Some housing developments are ridden with serious problems.

Today I met with the president ofthe Eagle Place Neighbourhood Association - at the Tim Hortons on Market Street. We exchanged ideas, and he made certain requests. We chatted about the mutual interest of his association and my role as ward 5 councillor in representing the interests of Eagle Place on city council. We agreed to work together, and respect one another where differences occur along the way.

I will attend some of the meetings of the association and listen to their opinions and requests. At the same time we (Councillor Margureite Ceschi-Smith and I) will no doubt initiate our own ward meetings in the neighbourhoods of ward 5. Eagle Place represents about 40% of the ward.

Collaborating with Mayor Chris Friel
Today we (Marguerite and I) firmed up our date to meet with our newly elected mayor, Chris Friel. he had sent out a memo a few days ago asking to meet with councillors ward by ward. Our meeting with him is scheduled for the afternoon of November 10th, and we were informed that he anticipates the meeting will last about 90 minutes. The news media have quoted him as valuing collaboration, and that's encouraging, because the residents I heard from during the recent campaign clearly indicated that's what they want to happen on the new council.

One idea promoted by Friel during the campaign was to budget $50,000 for each ward, and let the ward councillors take the lead in deciding how that money should be used. Some councillors feel that a decision like that should be part of the budget process where priorities and options are weighed in a unified process. I'm not sure how this will work, but I'm sure we'll hear more details about it in our meeting next week. This was one item that the EPNA president raised in our meeting, as he is eyeing some of that money for his association. Determining how to spend that money well, could take a lot of time and energy; hopefully that will not detract from the attention we will need to give to the review of the city budget.