On October 22, the town of Oakville is once again holding elections for municipal government. The school will also be participating in the province-wide Student Vote on Wednesday October 17. Students will be excused from their classes to cast for thein their vote on Wednesday, and any who are 18 years old are encouraged to vote.
To get youth involved, several staff and students at Iroquois Ridge have organized a meet and greet and a debate with some of the candidates. Last Thursday, the library filled with students as Student Vote members Sarah Kronenfeld, Alyson Rodrigues, and Jack Savelli, invited our guest candidates to ask several student-submitted questions. Their goal was to engage Iroquois Ridge students to take interest in their community and give those students a direct connection with the town leaders. This would also allow them to better their understanding of the problems Oakville faces and how the people running for government plan to confront them.
The questions asked were:
- How are you going to implement feedback from students? Will you give it the same weight as parental feedback?
- We’ve got a lot of questions about traffic - do you think there are any pressing problems with Oakville’s traffic system? If so, what are they?
- Crosswalks along the busy streets in Oakville are unsafe, taking forever to change lights and only giving pedestrians a short amount of time to cross. What do you plan on doing to make crosswalks safer? (audience question)
- Many elementary and high schools are dealing with overcrowding because of all the new residential development in Oakville. When will new schools be opened to redistribute the high density of students? (audience question)
- Because the school does not provide buses for sports teams to attend events and games, participants are often forced to find a way to take themselves to the game. But if the driver is under 18 and does not have a reference check, they are not allowed to carpool students to the event. Is there anything that can be done about that? (audience question)
Ward 6 Oakville Councillor: Natalia Lishchyna
Natalia is the acclaimed town councillor for Ward 6, appointed in a by-election in 2003 with 53% of the vote. When asked about how she will be making crosswalks safer, she revealed that there are future plans to study the traffic coming from pedestrians and bikes in crosswalks for busy intersections. Crossing lights will also be adjusted to accommodate for those people without drastically interfering with vehicle travel. She went on to talk about how traffic lights will have to be adjusted in response to the advancement of technology with self driving vehicles, and the that will bring change to the current road system.
Ward 6 Halton Councillor: Tom Adams
Tom Adams is the “town and regional councillor” for Oakville’s Ward 6 and is acclaimed for this election. What he intends to do in his next 4-year term is preserve green space, renew infrastructure, and manage taxes and debts in Oakville. He talked about the town’s transit system coordinating with those in different towns and regions to have smooth traffic. He commented on his support of road expansion such as widening Dundas Road to Burlington and widening Trafalgar for a fifth lane to the Go Station. Tom also spoke about a transportation plan that will open access from the QEW to the Go Station. The funding for these projects will come from development charges from developers trying to build projects in the area instead of from citizens’ property taxes. Tom went on to talk about traffic light coordination, which would work by by sending data to a central location, impacting signals downstream so that traffic can move more smoothly.
Anne Marsden
Anne is coming out of retirement to run for Halton chair. and plans to fight poverty and bring equality to Halton region while working more closely with the rest of the it to make sure that budget spending is changed to more effectively support mental health, disabilities, and those in poverty. One policy that she intends on implementing is training municipal council employees about how municipal budgets are run, what the procedural bylaws are, “and how [they] must be transparent and accountable to the public.” She voiced her intentions to get input from the community by meeting with different school and student councils monthly to understand the problems they face. She also expressed her interest in making crosswalks safer for pedestrians.
Member of HDSB 3&6: Tanya Rocha
Running for public school trustee, Tanya Rocha aims to provide better funding and budgeting to the HDSB and improve education in areas like health and physical education and special needs. Her goals are to hire more staff, train existing staff better, address mental health and classroom violence, and get parents more involved with the school board. When asked how she plans to be involved with parents and students, she explained her intentions in getting the school councils of Wards 3 and 6 to meet regularly to discuss the problems their schools face and work together to implement common solutions. “If you bring those people together and share what issues [they] are having, collectively [they] can come up with ideas and solutions.” Tanya responded to the question about overcrowding in Oakville schools by explaining that there will be a new elementary school opening up east of Sixth Line in about a year, and that there is a northeast high school and elementary school proposal still waiting for approval.
May Xie
May is running for school board trustee and wants to use her strong background in management and accounting to better budget the school board while also putting pre-existing resources into more effective use. May involves herself in the community by knocking on doors and communicating with the people, and plans on working closely with town councillors, regional councillors, and MPs to solve the challenges Oakville faces. She has remarked on the importance of interacting with the community by participating in school and student council meetings and sending updates with newsletters and social media. May also mentioned that she will voice concerns over the strict policies on student carpooling for school events and about whether they can be changed to be less debilitating.
To learn more about who you are voting for in your ward, visit the Oakville registered candidates page to find each candidate’s website and personal contact information. If you are 18, make sure to register on the voting list. Even if you’re 16 or 17 you can pre-register now for future elections.
0 comments:
Post a Comment