Pellerin: Ottawa People's Summit shares ideas for a better city
Maybe I'm too optimistic for my own good, but I have a feeling we'll look back on this time as when people power was born. In the United States, so many Americans are organizing to resist abuses coming from the White House. We don't have Donald Trump in the capital of #Never51, thank goodness, but enough of us are sick and tired of being unheard when it comes to making this the best city it can be that we're organizing.
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On Tuesday evening, I was downtown for the first People's Summit, put together by Better Ottawa and supported Horizon Ottawa as well as by other community organizations including a few I've written about before, such as Ottawa Community Land Trust and the Urbanism Book Club.
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The sold-out crowd packed Impact Hub on Slater Street. This in itself was impressive given that the event wasn't advertised very much, and there was a $25 admission fee. Organizer Neil Saravanamuttoo told me he was hoping for 30 or maybe 40 people. Nearly 100 bought a ticket, including Kitchissippi Coun. Jeff Leiper, who said he went to listen.
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People came for different reasons, including networking with like-minded folks and debating issues that are front of mind. I walked around the room listening to conversations, and I heard 'Lansdowne' mentioned more than once. Urban gardening and LRT were often heard, too.
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Mostly I think people came because, as Saravanamuttoo said in his opening remarks to enthusiastic applause, 'we love this city, but we don't like what's happening at City Hall, and we want to do something about it.'
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The crowd was treated to a live recording of the Better Ottawa Municipal Panel with the fantastic duo of municipal journalism experts Joanne Chianello and Jon Willing. They answered questions from the audience covering subjects such as leadership, engagement, security, public bathrooms (or rather, the ever-frustrating lack thereof), and why councillors' emails often provide better information than anything the city puts out, regardless of platform.
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Events such as this People's Summit help address a challenge that activists often face when dealing with a large city that is so bureaucratic it moves at a glacial pace — when it moves at all, that is. It takes years to approve simple changes like allowing residents to grow carrots in their front yard. Now imagine more complicated matters like, I don't know, running a transit system that works or building sidewalks that aren't full of badly patched cracks.
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