[GREN-Exec] GREN Sept. meeting - meet and greet candidates?

[Kevin Thomason]

Susan,

Excellent to see you take a stab at these position papers.  I think they are a good start.

Some feedback;

- I don't know if they print out okay for others but these look fine on my computer screen but don't print well at all.  Perhaps it is just my computer but when I try to print them huge areas of text are missing and everything else is all jumbled up.  It could be some sort of PDF corruption.

- In the second bullet point on the first page I would actually highlight the SW Corner of Kitchener and the determination of Kitchener to develop that sensitive moraine area more so than the Waterloo Westside subdivisions.  The real battle and concern is in the south where we can still make a difference.

- I would want to broaden the third bullet point on salting - I think the real issue these days is the absurd amount of salt used on private properties (i.e. homes, shopping centers, apartments, etc.).  The municipalities have done well reducing the amount of salt used - it is now often these private lands where the salt is deeper than the snow.

- I would be sure to add Woolwich to the fourth bullet point on page one as they are facing an onslaught of gravel pit applications.

- I would remove the word "urban" from the first bullet point on page 2 - with the populations of our townships slated to almost double in the coming years the growth stress isn't just urban.

- On page 3 in the section on Air quality I would change the first bullet point to read "Upgrade all Regional and Municipal vehicles"

- We should also add a bullet point to challenge the municipalities to encourage all new commercial buildings, apartments and subdivisions be built to the highest environmental standards - far above what the provincial building code calls for now be it with higher energy efficiency, insulation and window standards and the use of innovative technologies such as geothermal, wind, solar, water recycling, etc.

- I would also want to add a section on Accountability that asks that
	- all Council votes be recorded
	- all Councillors publicly provide their expense reports and campaign donations on-line
	- that no developer or corporate campaign contributions be accepted by politicians (similar to the Federal political system)
	- that we work towards the development of local Council report cards

Feel free to use or discard whatever you like of these ideas.

Cheers,
Kevin.

----------------------------

On 2010-09-15, at 5:02 PM, Susan Koswan wrote:

> Hi GREN Exec,
> I took Greg’s changes, played around a bit and reformatted the GREN LRT position paper. Would it also be a good idea to add the shorter version of Greg’s paper on community gardens as part of the package?
>  
> Also, I just ran this by John and we think it’s a good idea. For our Sept. 29 meeting, we prepare a Power Point presentation of GREN’s position papers (all of the above) and make some hard copies and invite all the candidates. We have a Q & A and a potluck dessert and beverages afterwards.
>  
> What say y’all? We need to move on this quickly because it’s 2 weeks from tonight. The only conflict(s) I’m aware of so far would be Rogers’ ward debates and any other local debates. We know we won’t get everyone, but it would be a good opportunity for some good education, dialogue and publicity because we will invite the media. We’d have it at St. John’s Kitchen.
>  
> Susan K
>  
>  
> <image002.jpg>2080: The Return of Pareto
> by Susan Koswan
> Treehuggers.
> The 80/20 Rule.
> One long weekend...
> www.volumesdirect.com or  dandelion at gto.net
> Now on Kindle! www.amazon.com
>  
>  
> <GREN election 2010 revised agenda.pdf><GREN LRT final position.pdf>_______________________________________________
> Executive mailing list
> Executive at gren.ca
> http://gren.ca/mailman/listinfo/executive_gren.ca

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://gren.ca/pipermail/executive_gren.ca/attachments/20100916/db4b91a9/attachment.html>