Mimico 20/20: What does community involvement entail?

Michael Harrsion has written a great overview of James Franceschini’s legacy for the recent issue of Panoram Italia Magazine.

See page 12 of Vol. 1, No. 4 of the magazine. You can locate the this issue my clicking on the Archives menu of Panoram Italia Magazine. you can print out the article using the menu at the top of the screen at the website for the magazine.

On a related topic: Last night’s Mimico 20/20 meeting (Dec. 7, 2011) at the auditorium at John English Junior Middle School was interesting and informative.

The meaning of the term ‘community involvement’ in the context of Mimico 20/20 was addressed by several speakers who commented during the Q & A after the main presentation.

There are, as I understand from the meeting, a variety of views with regard to what the term means. By way of example, how does the Mimico 20/20 charette procedure compare to the Mississauga Waterfront charette?

In her remarks during the Q & A, Ruth Grier brought attention to a recent article in The Globe and Mail concerning the Mississauga Waterfront planning process.

The Globe article highlights the fact that citizen involvement can take shape in many forms, with varying levels of participation and input from everyday citizens. One has the sense from the comments at the Mimico 20/20 meeting that the Misissauga waterfront planning process serves as a model for how to ensure that citizens are actively involved in planning processes related to waterfront development. The Mississauga process has a clearly defined mechanism for ensuring citizen input is taken into account.

Speakers requested information during the Mimico 20/20 Q & A session regarding ways in which the community is involved in the planning process in Mimico. One answer was that, along with another Mimico 20/20 meeting, citizens will have the opportunity to attend a meeting of the local Community Council when the results of the Mimico 20/20 process will be discussed.

The meeting also discussed what ‘heritage preservation’ means. There appeared to be general agreement that ‘revitalization’ has a wide range of possible meanings.

A speaker during the Q & A brought attention to the concept of ‘throw-away condos’ with reference to the appearance in the Mimico area of condos built with glass walls. The drawbacks of this construction method has been highlighted in recent Toronto-area news stories.

Much content is covered in the course of such a meeting. We look forward to sharing reports based on transcripts of the meeting. These will be posted as blog entries at the Preserved Stories website and will be distributed elsewhere.

The question of whether or not audio-recording and video-recording is permitted, allowed, or appropriate at such public meetings is an interesting story in its own right. The meeting was recorded, notwithstanding a communication before the meeting which asserted: “Please respect that participants have not given consent to be audio or video recorded.”

By the time the meeting was under way, it had been established (a) that there would be recording and (b) if anyone objected to being recorded as a speaker during the Q & A, they should say so prior to speaking.

To my knowledge no-one objected.