April 10, 2011

The question I get most frequently at the grocery store, on the bus, or walking around Waterloo hasn’t been about rental housing, rapid transit, or any of the other hot-button issues starting with ‘R’.

The question I hear most often, from people I know well and those I’m meeting for the first time, is a version of “How are you enjoying Council?”

During the campaign, I remember being asked frequently why I would want to get into politics, given everything that gets said about politicians. So I imagine part of the reason this question comes up so often now is because those same people are checking in on whether I still think that running for office was a good idea.

Fair enough.

But I also believe part of the reason continues to be that people aren’t precisely sure what being in politics would mean for them and, knowing or seeing you as a real person in front of them, this is an opportunity to find out.

My answer is normally some version of saying the many opportunities to have a positive impact outweigh the drawbacks of being a target for public ridicule.

Some of these positive opportunities include the visioning process that we will be going through this year on Northdale, updating official plans and transportation master plans to help shape a more pedestrian-friendly and intensified city, and improving the health and safety of our rental housing stock while protecting the character and stability of our residential neighbourhoods.

But many of those are still abstract changes.

What has changed the most has been how I experience our community on a daily basis. Watching a heavy rainfall outside as I write this has me thinking about our stormwater system and the significant renewal and upgrades we will need to handle the increased frequency and intensity of storms brought on, in part, by climate change. When shopping in UpTown, I look more closely at whether the store or restaurant I’m walking into would be accessible or whether the step up would block some members of our community from experiencing the same Waterloo as I do.

Those are the daily changes that have come from having the great opportunity to serve our community as your representative. There have been and will continue to be days when I do wonder, as I know you do, whether getting into politics is worth the trouble and the long hours of meetings, events, and returning emails.

But there are so many opportunities to seize that those days and those thoughts pass quickly.