Practical, hands-on representation for Lakeside. Fixing what's broken, opening up what's been fenced off, and watching every dollar the way you'd watch your own.
Other than my duty to serve Lakeside residents as their representative at the City:
Lakeside residents sit outside of the Utilities Kingston service zone for electrical and natural gas services. As a result, finding information about service interruptions can be incredibly difficult. I want the city to pursue a city-wide service tracker for all services. Whether you want to report a pothole or a downed power line, we should have a singular service tool to combine everything. It will improve efficiency, responsiveness, and reduce confusion across the city.
Lakeside needs more than upkeep, it needs investment in the places people gather. That means looking seriously at expanding recreation and community programming for kids, seniors, and everyone in between, and it means finally moving on redeveloping key sites like Centre 70 into something the neighbourhood is proud of, instead of letting it sit underused.
Canada has been dealing with a housing crisis for quite some time now. Despite a recent decline in rental prices, Kingston is still the 10th most expensive city in all of Canada to live in. Correcting this, and ensuring it stays that way in the long term, is the responsibility of the municipal government. The city needs to take a more hands-on and proactive approach to housing by embracing their role under the Housing Services Act as the service provider for Kingston and Frontenac, and I fully intend to do so.
The best part is, it makes financial sense to do so. See how →
Every dollar wasted on a bloated or poorly scrutinized contract is a dollar that isn't fixing a road or funding a program. I'll bring a high level of scrutiny to city contracts, asking hard questions before money moves, not after it's spent.
While I agree with the intent behind the Invista Centre aquatics expansion, I find the price tag of $102 million tough to digest. In July council voted to scale back portions of the facility to reduce costs, but I don't think that's the issue. Watertown, NY recently completed a comparable athletics and recreation centre development for USD$27 million. While they were redeveloping an existing building compared to Invista's ground-up development, there is still a large disparity in this budget that I wish to explore.
Right now there is a natural sand beach cove on our waterfront that sits fenced off behind an industrial site, unused and inaccessible to the people who live minutes away. That's a waste of a genuine public asset. Wartman-Patterson Park is immediately adjacent and is currently a popular swimming spot, and would be much improved with the addition of this waterfront space. I'll fight for public trail and beach access along this shoreline, so Lakeside residents can finally use what should have been theirs all along.