{"id":32048,"date":"2022-10-13T23:54:10","date_gmt":"2022-10-14T03:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=32048"},"modified":"2022-10-13T23:54:12","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T03:54:12","slug":"aurora-votes-2022-increasing-community-engagement-with-council-a-key-priority-for-mayoral-candidate-durrant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-votes-2022-increasing-community-engagement-with-council-a-key-priority-for-mayoral-candidate-durrant\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora Votes 2022: Increasing community engagement with Council a key priority for mayoral candidate Durrant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Residents sometimes feel uncomfortable speaking up when they have ideas to bring forward, but tackling that and increasing community engagement is a priority Phiona Durrant would like to tackle in her first 100 days in office, should she be elected Mayor on October 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community engagement has been a key theme throughout Durrant\u2019s campaign and if she secures victory this month, one of the first things she says she\u2019ll look at is offering more residents to provide input from the podium within the Council Chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the first 100 days, I would want us to have meetings to give people the opportunity to come in and look at things their Council can commit to\u2026and have their voice heard. As a resident, one of the concerns is I am not included in the decisions that are being made. When you look at a lot of the things that get passed, you might see maybe 10 residents who send in feedback. I think there has to be a lot more intentionality behind how we\u2019re engaging the community. We can\u2019t have a community of almost 63,000 people but make a decision that is going to affect our community beyond our time on Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to hear from people [and] do a financial audit, because it\u2019s one thing to say we have to increase or we\u2019re not spending. Put a freeze on property tax increases until we understand where waste is happening. We might say, \u2018It\u2019s just $10 more on your taxes,\u2019 but what does that mean to a family?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication and levelling the playing field for all has been a key tenet of Durrant\u2019s campaign. She says she believes incumbents have an advantage because they have not stepped aside for the duration of the campaign. She also says she feels the colour of her skin has been another barrier in getting her message out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have to navigate this to look and sound like everyone else and I don\u2019t want to do that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, her experiences have helped her engage in other ways. She\u2019s setting out, she says, to \u201cdismantle apathy\u201d in the electoral process and \u201cmake people feel more purposeful.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a short time to engage your community,\u201d she says, noting that in doing so one of her platform planks that is resonating with voters is \u201cthe need to keep services that are there for when and where they need it, especially for youth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYoung people keep saying to me, \u2018Why should I vote? I just go elsewhere anyway,\u2019 and that breaks my heart,\u201d she says. \u201cHaving a 21-year-old son, and explaining the journey for him and his experiences here, I was able to help young people say, \u2018That makes sense. I can see why.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A top service youth are especially looking for are more opportunities to play basketball on full courts, when there are more options in the community to play on half-courts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYoung people are talking a lot about basketball, about having a proper skating and bike ramp \u2013 we have one right now at the Aurora Family Leisure Complex, but it could change place and it could be more enticing to make people want to go there, spend their day there and interact,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transportation options are another top concern for young people, she says, and beyond that demographic, small business supports and addressing the affordability crisis are top-of-mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There have been \u201clittle supports\u201d for small business in the community since the start of the global pandemic, and supporting businesses can be as simple as changing the way the Town participates in grand openings; it should be more than just a photo op and a ribbon cutting, she contends. Instead, it should be about driving people to the destination to drum up businesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you look at business, a lot of the focus is in the Yonge and Wellington area, but we have businesses all over Aurora,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the affordability front, \u201cthere are a lot of things to sort out,\u201d but keeping in mind it\u2019s Council as a whole that makes decisions rather than just the single vote of the Mayor, sorting it out starts with conversations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relationships are \u201ceverything\u201d and \u201cbuilders are extremely valuable to our community\u201d but it\u2019s about creating partnerships that bring value to the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI feel if they (residents and developers\/builders) are in one room where the community is getting a chance to ask questions and hear for themselves, and we are creating incentives for them because they are business people and want to make money \u2013 and you should make money when you\u2019re in business \u2013 incentives are a win-win for both the community and builders,\u201d she says. \u201cWe can see more affordable homes coming into place, we can see that we can partner with Habitat for Humanity, we can see that middle piece that is missing, and a lot of residents have reached out to me about stable neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAre we putting [secondary suites] all in one corner? Do we really look at that and make sure it is blended across Aurora properly? Not everyone wants to live in a condo, and you don\u2019t have to live in there to have affordability. We don\u2019t want to have enmity between the builders because at the end of the day you can see what happens: they go to the tribunal, they get their way, and the community still doesn\u2019t gain. When you have those conversations, the builders can see what\u2019s in it for them, the community can hear what it is\u2026and both have to happen. You just have to be responsible for it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, Durrant says it\u2019s about looking how \u201cwe can restore hope in Aurorans,\u201d something she says is \u201cjust really dying out.\u201d Making a difference starts with leadership and, if she is elected on October 24, she says she wants people to hold her accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is about diverse voices and perspectives that are all part of the change because Aurora is evolving and growing,\u201d she says. \u201cAs President of the Aurora Black Community I saw the power of coming together, I saw my ability for consensus building, I saw the beauty and the effectiveness in it. Everyone takes a piece of the responsibility and then you can own it and you take pride in it because you are a part of it. When you\u2019re part of that process, you\u2019re a part of maintaining it. To see a Town as small as it is be so divided in its operation, I don\u2019t see why and I don\u2019t think it is necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is the only way that others won\u2019t feel excluded and left out and it has nothing to do with culture, background, it is just about bringing the voices to the table, hearing from the people we\u2019re working for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Residents sometimes feel uncomfortable speaking up when they have ideas to bring forward, but tackling that and increasing community engagement is a priority Phiona Durrant would like to tackle in her first 100 days in office, should she be elected Mayor on October 24. Community engagement has been a key theme throughout Durrant\u2019s campaign and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":32039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/2022-10-13-05.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-8kU","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-25 22:04:54","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32048"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32048\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}