At the February 20, 2020, Regional Council meeting, I presented a motion for the direct election of the Regional Chair. You can read my pre-meeting thoughts about this motion here.

Following up on the motion to see the Regional Chair be directly elected come the 2022 election, here’s the motion, followed by what I said following the presentation of the motion: Continue reading “Election of the Regional Chair – follow-up” →

During the campaign, I made the following promise:

“As the Municipal Act mandates that we are to undergo a governance review in this upcoming term of Council, I will work tirelessly toward us having a directly elected Regional Chair in the 2022 election.”

Now, grab yourself a coffee or cup of tea and kick back for a bit of a lengthy read…and bonus super nerd material at the end of this post. Continue reading “Direct Election of the Regional Chair” →

Hiring the Niagara Region’s next CAO is arguably the most important thing this Regional Council will do this term.

Would I normally say that? No, likely not. But given the fallout from the hiring of the last CAO, I’d say it’s a fair statement.

Continue reading “Hiring the next CAO” →

The other day, I finished reading Iain De Jong‘s The Book on Ending Homelessness. This morning, I had the privilege of listening to him speak about Moving from Managing Homelessness to Ending Homelessness.

Continue reading “Ending homelessness in Niagara” →

The 2018 election campaign was different from previous election campaigns I’ve run for two reasons:

1. Campaigning for municipal elections usually starts – or at least really ramps up – around Labour Day; and
2. The focus of the campaign was much more on being good, honest, ethical people than it was on issues handled by municipal or regional government.

Continue reading ““unreasonable, unjust, and wrong”” →