It Takes a Village

I am actually anticipating a favourable hearing from Council on the demolition of old buildings an replacing them with new.

A person could be twenty years on a Council without having an opportunity to invest one's  ideas and enthusiasm to  build something spectacular.

Negative comments received are mostly personally hostile against  myself. That was predictable. They won't generate much support.
They may not even come out of the woodwork. 

The fact is, I wasn't on Council when the decision was made to build a new library to replace the old one.

Or a firehall on  a  site in our new  prestige industrial park.

The decisions were made without me.

But a picture has evolved.  It is clear where we  need to go from here.

We do have a different concept within Council about  design and purpose of a teen centre .

I don't think it should be more athletic facilities. Staff think it should be multi-purpose and make the best possible use of public resources. I don't fault them for that.

But we  have made the same  mistakes with every facility we ever built by  trying  to be too many things and not being quite successful with any. More money is spent trying to achieve unrealistic ends.

I think  a teen centre it should be close to a hang-out and  user friendly  More like a coffee shop with room to move about.

Admission should be open with an opportunity for  revenue
within

Having to pay a transit fare will put it out of  reach of kids who need  it most.

In  Halifax last year, I attended a workshop about the high  cost of policing  and typical knee jerk  reactions. A panel  spoke to the issue from three different angles.

The third  was most compelling to me.

The speaker was from Waterloo Region's Social and Family Services..

We learned  kids who would end up in jail could be identified  by Grade 5. They ones  who hadn't mastered  basic  reading and writing skills.

It struck a chill to my heart. Stephen Harper's campaign promise to build more jails did nothing to quell my conviction, we are not doing right by our kids.

I know from experience, a comment like that does not engender  sympathy from the average middle class or well-off parent who  has everything to give to their kids.

How many times have we heard it  and said it.  The kids are our future. It means all  the kids.

A teen centre to me is a place to reach kids. The ones who might be heading for trouble as well as those who are not.

To  let them know,  they do matter. We do care. .

Provide  contacts for  resources they might need. Make  them  welcome.  Let them have  fun while  going about the business of  safely growing up.


The Mayor says we can't afford that. I'm not sure what he means by "that"

I'm not talking about kids in trouble.

I'm talking about keeping kids out of trouble.

I'm not thinking about a $600,000. gymnasium and healthy physical exercise; the mantra of adults who've forgotten what it's like.

I'm talking about a home away from home, with  peers for validation and a friendly adult or two  nearby with  good listening
skills and useful advice to offer. Especially the lonely kid  having trouble mixing in.

"It takes a whole village to raise a child"