This blog has for long stated Mr Perks would make a better mayor then a member of council, and still believe this. Mr Perks was right however in choosing not to challenge Mr Tory in this 2018 election. The Toronto election ran down the same rails as many other elections in many places have in recent years, – on the individual rather than the body of our city.
Why Mayor,? Mr Perks has a policy wonk brain and temperament, and an excruciatingly deep understanding of municipal politics and how the city runs currently, and has ideals of thought and skill on how the city as a whole should be run. Herein lies the rough, Mr Perks ideas and skills are better suited to transition, and maybe even transforming the city as a whole to a better place to live. He cares deeply about his old ward 14, and probably has better thoughts for the betterment of that old ward than being a councillor allows him to do.
The new area he has gained in the new ward 4 will require learning and research for him to govern this larger and diverse ward. Hope fully he will have the counsel of Ms Doucette for basic issues current in the ward.
More importantly he needs to seek an understanding of the ward from former Ward 13 councillor Mr Bill Saundercook, who has unparalleled knowledge of issues which the old Ward 13 has struggled with for decades, for example the greatly different areas of Swansea and the Junction, each of which require completely different governing skills because of their differing needs. Mr Perks needs that information to represent the newer parts of the ward outside the old ward 14.
So what did Mr Perks win on Oct 22 2018? He won on question, one that needs to answered and an answer that needs to be implemented. The people in the ward have concerns about their community, and his ability to seek out the questions and respond with action that is needed. 44.6 percent surely indicates questioning is at hand in the mind of many people in the ward. Mr Perks needs to change his methods of relating and most importantly partnering with the community.
Humbly, I hope Mr Perks, will address the following,
- A) interact with more people in the ward, not just other policy and municipal government fans.
- B) lower your reliance on protection you perceive wanting most anyone register as a lobbyist when visiting your office.
- C) open an additional community office in the old ward 13, operate it like the one you have currently in Queen St. (But remember the lobbyist thing)
- D) Get Sarah Doucette to train you in local community resident access meetings such as she held in libraries.
- E) Do not hire Ms Doucette or her past staff for your office , Ms Doucette can do much better working directly in Swansea. As to her staff, better they get wider municipal experience, a few of them have potential, but need more experience. Mr Sandercook’s success was greatly helped by this local junction office manager..
- F) Work to fix the Junction, it’s residents association is inactive. It’s people not nearly as community involved as the Junction,Triangle and a Parkdale. It’s business group has many internal disagreements. For eight years the Junction community has achieved little directly related to the area itself. This is not a failure to place on Ms Doucette. The Junction has waring tribes, incredibly difficult to get to work together, Ms Doucette was simply not as seasoned councillor as needed to guide the Junction, in her elected period she achieved much more for Swansea as simpler gentler place with a lot of strong community effort.
- G) Provide a way out of misery for the marginalized men and women of Parkdale, forget the staff methods used by the homeless staff at the city, to service the marginalized, they need more flexibility, and more autonomy to work new methods and ideas into the “system”.
Mr Perks did not win an acceptance of his platform with only getting 44.6 percent of the ward votes.
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