Ward 6 candidates debate civic engagement strategies

Lakefront Etobicoke residents want to be involved in city decisions, says the head of the area’s community health centre.

“People are upset at not having input into decision-making in the post-amalgamated city,” said Russ Ford, executive director of LAMP Community Health Centre on Fifth Street. “I’d ask how the local councillor is going to ensure citizens participate in the process. I think there’s a lot of anger out there because people don’t feel involved.

“Toronto has been successful based on communities and that’s eroding.”

A widening gap in local communities between rich and poor, and the potential impacts of Mimico 2020 – a decade-out planning vision for the lakefront neighbourhood – are issues Ford also cited as key to the area.

Creating neighbourhood advisory committees (NACs) to involve residents more closely in development proposals is former Toronto chief planner Paul Bedford’s favored government restructuring fix for Toronto.

George Smitherman likes the idea.

So much so, two weeks ago the former Ontario deputy premier named former Toronto mayor John Sewell to head a seven-member panel that would release recommendations on “government reform” by next April if he is elected mayor.

Bedford has been named to the panel, as has LAMP’s Ford.

New York has adopted NACs where development applications go first before one of 59, 50-member community boards, then before a 13-resident city planning commission. If both vote nay, the development proposal dies.

However, Tom Angotti, professor and chair of the Pratt Institute Graduate Center for Planning and Environment, argued inequity and NIMBYism exists in New York’s NACs.

“Today, although there is an extensive official structure for neighborhood planning, many neighborhoods, especially low-income neighborhoods and communities of color, must still exercise their influence through protest and organizing…” Angotti wrote in an article for the New Village Journal.

“The official structure also leaves uncorrected the substantial political and economic inequalities among neighborhoods. Because better-off neighborhoods are usually able to show more muscle, their influence is greater, and their methods for organizing more discreet.”

Despite its critics, the concept of NACs is gaining traction in the southern-most Etobicoke-Lakeshore ward.

Wendell Brereton, 41, a self-described Christian fundamentalist and pastor of a Regent Park church who is the only candidate not to live in the ward, has pledged to strike community councils if elected.

“It would be the co-operative relationship that city council has to have with the ward,” he said. “I want to bring back intimacy between city hall and citizens. It would be a multi-sector approach, reaching out to residents, as well as BIAs, the non-profit sector, Humber College.”

Further, Brereton said he would recruit other Ward 6 candidates to join the councils.

Second-time Ward 6 candidate Jem Cain is a strong advocate of striking community advisory councils to engage “frustrated and angry” citizens in city decisions on local developments.

“I think at the city instead of a culture of transparency and openness and inclusiveness, there’s a culture of secrecy,” said Cain. “I think it’s aided and abetted from the top and it’s directed from the top. We need to change that.”

‘Decide and defend’ is how Cain, 51, described the city’s consultation approach.

“(City staff) come to a public consultation and say, ‘We’re here to take your input,’ and as the evening wears on you realize the decision has already been made,” said Cain, who worked for a networking company for the past decade.

“You just never get any follow-up or accountability. Often at the city, you have to follow-up yourself again and again.”

Cain has not publicly endorsed a mayoral candidate.

Incumbent Mark Grimes, also a lifelong resident of the ward, did not respond to The Guardian’s request for an interview for this article.

First-time candidate Michael Laxer is also a fan of community advisory boards to engage citizens in civic democracy.

“There is a problem with civic engagement. It’s clear in the staggeringly low voter turnout and the disconnect people feel with city hall,” said Laxer, a decade-long resident and business owner of a used book store on Lake Shore Boulevard West.

“You can see it in this election. There’s a palpable anger out there towards the ‘establishment.’ I disagree with that anger’s target, but I understand the anger.”
Laxer, 39, is also strongly in favour of term limits for city councillors. He has publicly endorsed Joe Pantalone for mayor.

Terry Smith agreed with LAMP’s Ford that civic engagement is on residents’ minds.

The 29-year New Toronto resident argued in support of the councillor opening a local constituency office. Smith also favours the striking of a local community board, like those in New York, “is really, really important for regular communication between the councillor and residents.”

“Absolutely, people feel they don’t have any say at city hall,” said Smith. “It’s too big, too unwieldy. A local office where you could walk in, talk with staff and the councillor, look at developments on maps on the wall, open afternoons a couple of days a week. It’s face-to-face access and an advisory board would be a big asset.”

Return candidate David Searle, 46, is skeptical about an act of civic engagement like setting up a constituency office until costs are accessed. But he said he does advocate NACs.

“That’s a sound initiative,” said Searle, who works in automotive sales and marketing. “Having people on the front lines, bring people together from different sectors, working together to find the solutions of the day. But I’d have to look at the cost.”

Like Brereton, Searle has endorsed Ford for mayor.

Cecilia Luu did not respond to any Guardian requests for information or for an interview for this article.

- Tamara Shephard

Posted in Etobicoke, News