When I worked in municipal government, I held a position which made me the point person when citizens had questions about decisions made by Council. Often, the phone calls began with someone being very unhappy. Always, the phone calls ended with someone thanking me for listening to them and (when necessary) fully explaining the issue or decision to them. It was very common for me to hear: “Well, I still don’t like the decision, but at least I understand it better now. Thank you.”

Prior to and after working in that role, I worked in public and government relations (first for someone else, then my own small business) where I wrote speeches, built presentations, and wrote brochure and newsletter content for local municipalities and various Niagara Region projects. The goal: to always communicate in a way that was accessible to the general public. Continue reading “Communication is of paramount importance” →

With the race for regional council seats heating up in St. Catharines, an important bit of information you need is:

You get six.

In St. Catharines, voters face quite a lengthy ballot when they vote for: 1 mayor, 2 city councillors in their specific ward, 1 regional chair, 6 regional councillors to represent all of St. Catharines, and their school board trustees (the number of which varies depending on which school board you’re registered to vote for). Continue reading “You get six” →

With Niagara Regional Council set to debate another extension of Councillor Petrowski’s leave of absence (and make it retroactive) at this evening’s Council meeting, there are a number of things that need to be considered, especially the piece around accountability.

Continue reading “Accountability” →

We should not be paying someone to not do the job for which they were elected.

We should not be without appropriate representation at Regional Council.

On Thursday, June 14, 2018, Regional Council is scheduled to debate extending Councillor Petrowksi’s leave of absence for another three months. Just for 2017 and 2018, this will have left the citizens of St. Catharines without proper representation for at total of approximately 11 months.

This is also 11 months’ worth of salary that we can anticipate the Councillor has been receiving, as you can bet someone would have told us (or leaked to the media) if Council had done the responsible thing with taxpayers’ money and also suspended Petrowski’s pay. Continue reading “St. Catharines deserves better” →

During election campaigns, we hear candidates speak a lot about respect for taxpayers, but we rarely hear them speak about respect for citizens.

What’s the difference, you ask?

Well, here’s how I see it:

Respect for taxpayers is about ensuring that politicians are appropriately spending tax dollars they collect from property owners. Continue reading “Respect for citizens” →