What We’ve Done

A few months ago, I was invited to speak to a community group about my work on the Town Council in Collingwood. I saw it as an opportunity not only to gather my thoughts about the last many months, but also as a chance to learn PowerPoint, since the meeting would have to be held virtually because... Covid.

I was grateful for a chance to learn and a chance to reflect, and boy, has there been time for both in the last while, because...Covid. I went through the copious notes I take before and during meetings, and I had to go through some minutes and agendas, too, because, I have discovered, my note-taking is copious, but not always, um, legible.

We have made quite a few decisions I'm proud of. I think we've kept our tax rates reasonable, and that saying yes to a hockey team and to cannibis retailers were good choices. It was also a good choice to put money into helping the people who have been sleeping in our parks.

When Covid hit, we moved quickly to close down our facilities for safety's sake, and deferred tax payments for people who needed that break while they sorted things out. We brought in a somewhat nuanced approach to our overcrowded parks that will be tweaked in the next few months, since it appears Covid will not be cured before next winter.

I'm proud of my council colleagues for joining me to stand up to the province when it made its wrong-headed decision to gut Conservation Authorities, even though the effort ultimately proved futile, as I'm sure at least some of my colleagues were aware it would.

I'm also proud of our response to the Black Lives Matter protests, and the increasing awareness of the need for a concerted response to expressions of hatred and division. The council was unanimous in calling for provincial and federal changes to hate speech laws, and we have created what is being called a 'Unity Collective', to make space for us all to learn more about systemic discrimination, privilege, and power. As I tend to when confronted with difficult topics, I started reading, and am now familiar with the work of James Baldwin, Ijeoma Oluo, Ibram X Kendi, Robin DiAngelo, Carol Anderson, and Ta-Nehisi Coates in an attempt to become more aware of and responsive to these issues. Eight books is not enough to fully understand the fallout and fix the mistakes of the last 400 years, but it's a start.

We've approved a plan to build the long-awaited splash pad, put in some permanent washrooms at Fisher Field, and revamp the playground and pavillion at Sunset Point. We also finished fixing up Napier Street. Mountain Road is next, along with implementing the cycling plan and planting a thousand donated trees over the next five years. All that plus re-doing our Official Plan and our Strategic Plan.

Has it been perfect? Why, no. I think it's taking too long to make decisions on some items, like assigning the share sale proceeds and determining what to do with the terminals. But, as we discovered in the 900 pages of the Judicial Inquiry, when a town council rushes into a decision, it's not generally a good decision that's made. Speaking of which, I'd like to make some decisions in the next very very short while on what was contained in the blessed JI report. You can view what I had to say about it on my council facebook page.

As I put together the PowerPoint, I also realised how much I've learned about process and prodedure and how the whole 'municipal governance' thing works. I'm no expert yet, but I'm starting to understand my 'unknowns' and 'known unknowns', and there are fewer 'unknown unknowns' each day.

At the start of this new year, I'm hoping for peace and safety for our cousins and friends in the US and a quick vaccination schedule for Covid. In the meantime, I look forward to long walks with my doggie on the trails when they're not icy. When they are icy, we take to the sidewalks, where I continue to seek out 'flowerpot houses'. I hope you, too, are weathering the lockdown as well as possible under the circumstances.