Ward Council: Inaugural Meeting

Earlier this week, my office hosted the first meeting of the new Ward Council. This Council, composed of volunteer representatives from the more than a dozen community associations and other important organizations throughout the Ward, is an important way in which my office is fostering greater community engagement.

In our inaugural meeting, we had an opportunity for Ward Council Members to introduce themselves to one another and get a sense as to the structure of future meetings as well as how each one can help my office in developing policy and responding to community concerns. Issues discussed included the Ice Storm and power outages, as well as how my office is working with the City and power distributors to develop better solutions before the next storm. More information on our efforts can be found here.

There were also discussions regarding traffic-related issues and what residents and community associations can do to contribute to solutions for addressing speeding. As a reminder, if there are consistent speeding issues on a street or area, residents should contact 311 to request that traffic calming measures be explored on that street. Residents should also file a non-emergency police report when there is a pattern of excessive speeding in an area, as those reports help inform where police deploy their resources.

Many other issues were discussed over the course of the meeting, but as this was the inaugural meeting, the focus was mainly on explaining how the Ward Council would work and providing an opportunity for Members to meet one another. Future meetings will focus more heavily on co-developing consensus answers to problems facing residents, helping provide my office with direction that we can use to be more effective in representing each and every community in Ward 21.

To that end, the Ward Council will meet regularly to foster dialogue between organizations within our communities. Residents are encouraged to submit their ideas and issues to ward21@ottawa.ca or to their respective community associations.