Q: What one election issue do you feel is most relevant to your ward in this election? A: Unifying the ward and increasing civic engagement throughout (increased participation, heightened voter turnout etc.) Unifying the ward by the institution of a comprehensive website accessible by all the ward ’ s residents is a new, innovative potential means of accomplishing such alongside more tried and true methods of encouraging and fostering participation through regular open community consultation and the like. Q: How are you currently involved in the community? A: As a leader and a participant within many community groups I currently spend and have spent much of the past two decades alongside the constituency working to address, react to and seek democratic solutions to the ward ’ s needs. As a member of multiple local Boards, Committees, Executives and community groups, I strive to keep abreast of issues through continual personal interaction with the residents and too through multimedia sources. As far as least proud of, in respect to the views of our wards constituents, the Council decisions based in respect to financing, in September 2004 in respect to election financing and further tied in to such, in July 2006 in respect to compensation for elected officials. In July, Council approved a pay increase for members of the Council who will be elected in November, taking effect January 1, 2007 thereby increasing Councillors' current salary of about $87,000 annually to $95,000, a decision that while deemed to be reflective of bring the salaries in line with the average of large Ontario municipalities is not one that I see as being a desirable decision. Locally within ward 13 our incumbent councillor voted against the ward ’ s constituents in 2004 in respect to a vote taken to restrict election donors to individuals, banning corporations and trade unions from making campaign donations. My views remain that citizen engagement is of paramount importance within our City and that the wishes of said citizenry should be reflected through individual Council member votes and the collective Council decision/outcome of such. Through engagement of our City ’ s populous I foresee that Toronto can make the transition from greatness to becoming the recognized world ’ s best if we act on and make use of our untapped local resources in a more effective manner.
Q: What one election issue do you feel is most relevant to your ward in this election? A: Unifying the ward and increasing civic engagement throughout (increased participation, heightened voter turnout etc.) Unifying the ward by the institution of a comprehensive website accessible by all the ward ' s residents is a new, innovative potential means of accomplishing such alongside more tried and true methods of encouraging and fostering participation through regular open community consultation and the like. Q: How are you currently involved in the community? A: As a leader and a participant within many community groups I currently spend and have spent much of the past two decades alongside the constituency working to address, react to and seek democratic solutions to the ward ' s needs. As a member of multiple local Boards, Committees, Executives and community groups, I strive to keep abreast of issues through continual personal interaction with the residents and too through multimedia sources. As far as least proud of, in respect to the views of our wards constituents, the Council decisions based in respect to financing, in September 2004 in respect to election financing and further tied in to such, in July 2006 in respect to compensation for elected officials. In July, Council approved a pay increase for members of the Council who will be elected in November, taking effect January 1, 2007 thereby increasing Councillors' current salary of about $87,000 annually to $95,000, a decision that while deemed to be reflective of bring the salaries in line with the average of large Ontario municipalities is not one that I see as being a desirable decision. Locally within ward 13 our incumbent councillor voted against the ward ' s constituents in 2004 in respect to a vote taken to restrict election donors to individuals, banning corporations and trade unions from making campaign donations. My views remain that citizen engagement is of paramount importance within our City and that the wishes of said citizenry should be reflected through individual Council member votes and the collective Council decision/outcome of such. Through engagement of our City ' s populous I foresee that Toronto can make the transition from greatness to becoming the recognized world ' s best if we act on and make use of our untapped local resources in a more effective manner.
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