Community Issues, Collaborative Action, Real Impact.
What are your priorities? I will be connecting with as many of the people of Stratford as I am able over the next many months leading up to election day (and beyond of course). I will update priorities as your issues become even more clear to me.
For now, my priorities to help people in our city can be found below! Be sure to check back weekly for updates and additions to the information below.
Affordability
Transit & Transportation
City Communication
Climate Innovation
Many families in our community are safe and secure in their homes each day and night. However, there are many that face a great deal of difficulty with their housing situation. Not everyone in our city are able to afford shelter, and the city must address this lack of housing by helping to provide affordable and attainable housing. Real estate is a tough one. Many have sunk their savings into a home and the value of those homes are important. But the more housing increases in price, the more unattainable it is for people.
Shelter for those who need it is a must. We need to build a shelter and help everyone get off the street.
We have to protect renters. Renters need safe, and suitable homes. By working on licensing and maintenance requirements and standards we can hope to provide quality homes for people.
We have many vacant homes in our city, while people are stuck on the street or in substandard accommodations. By instituting a vacant homes tax, like many municipalities have done before us, we are able to create a revenue stream that can be specifically directed towards necessary housing solutions.
In terms of building housing, Stratford needs to get serious about this. Most of the new homes that are being built are market homes on the outskirts of the city. We are sprawling into important farmland, we are creating new infrastructure that costs more money, and we aren’t solving the affordability issue. We must move to legalize a much more broad array of housing solutions. We need to focus on infill, where services are much more accessible and financially responsible. We need to support non-market housing solutions and consider becoming a builder or supporting a not-for-profit building programs that will help with the housing emergency.
Affordable and Attainable Housing Solutions
Housing is essential, but so are food, clothing, transportation, medicine and many other everyday necessities. The city must reassess which fees are truly necessary, which can be reduced or eliminated, and which—if any—should be adjusted upward. This is about protecting those who need it most: fees should reflect the needs and realities of the people who rely on these services.
Transit fees offer a clear example. The city plans to collect $605,000 from transit passes—revenue that comes largely from students and residents who cannot afford a personal vehicle. This cost could be absorbed in the municipal budget. Eliminating transit fares would leave money in the pockets of families that need it most and deliver additional public benefits: fewer cars on the road, reduced wear on infrastructure, and lower maintenance costs for the city. Those savings could then be redirected to reduce financial pressure on residents.
We should also make it easier for local food to reach households. That means lowering fees for farmers selling their produce to then pass on savings to families. We should be supporting community and backyard vegetable gardening, and expanding programs that help fresh, affordable food reach families. These measures strengthen local food systems, improve access to healthy options, and keep more income in community and family hands.
Our roads and transportation systems are crucial to our daily lives. We need good roads, we need good options for those without personal vehicles, and we need to allow people in our community to get around to access the goods and services that are vital for their lives.
A huge portion of our annual budgets goes toward road repair. The schedule of road repairs is long, extending many, many years into the future. We must figure out ways to mitigate the wear and tear on our roads. By promoting transit and active transportation, we can significantly reduce the wear on our streets.
Free transit, as I touched on above, is crucial to build a strong and resilient transit system that helps families to move throughout the city. Creating demand for transit should be easy. We make ourselves stronger by being less reliant on vehicular traffic.
Active transportation is a fairly untouched area of focus for our city. We have not prioritized bike lanes, community pathways, or other methods of folks moving through our city that takes them off roads. We need to build more active transportation capacity for families to have more choice of how they traverse Stratford.
Lastly, with the Climate Crisis upon us, and extreme weather events increasing, we must work towards more resiliency with our transportation infrastructure. This means having folks less reliant on one mode of transport. So again, promote free transit, build active transportation networks and take the pressure off our road infrastructure so it lasts longer.
Communication with residents about news, events and notable ongoings is a vital and important responsibility of every community. Stratford can improve their connection and communication with residents easily and necessarily.
Issues that are coming before Council need to be more widely and diversely promoted. Residents deserve to be better informed on the large, crucial decisions with enough time to respond in the manner they see fit. Whether that is to educate themselves, or talk with neighbours or experts, or form opinions. Then they have plenty of notice to be able to attend meetings, ask questions, and observe council, or possibly even delegate.
Too often, decisions are made with little to no input from residents. How many conversations are being had between councillors and residents? I have no idea, but I know that none have approached me about anything. I will give credit to a couple who share posts on Facebook to help citizens. There are a few on Council who will somewhat consistently respond to email questions. But there are far too few conversations happening between the people of Stratford and the Councillors who have been chosen to represent them. We can and must do better than this.
This also becomes a transparency issue. How can the city be as transparent as possible so that citizens are aware of what they should know? Improved communication, improved collaboration will reduce transparency question significantly.
These conversations should be happening. These conversations must happen.
The climate and our natural environment are critical to our well-being. Innovative approaches to energy, transportation, housing, industry and much more are crucial to Stratford families staying safe and also becoming a leader in Canada in the coming decades and beyond.
We must prioritize innovation and progress with environmental issues. These issues also, unfortunately, provide opportunities. We can become a leader in renewable energy systems, in recycling technology, in transit and active transportation.
A transition to a green economy is coming. It is only a matter of time. The sooner we embrace this, the better positioned we will be to lead. The more leading we can do, the better off our entire community will be.
We can absolutely prioritize green spaces, while still meeting the needs of families and residents. More green space will assist in dealing with increased weather events, with greater heat events. The more we can mitigate weather and climate, the better off our residents will be.
We need to significantly increase our capacity for EV’s. We can increase the number of public chargers, priority parking, and personal home chargers in Stratford, positioning the city as a leader and a desirable place to live and work.