{"id":189494,"date":"2023-10-26T16:10:21","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T20:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=189494"},"modified":"2023-10-27T08:45:52","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T12:45:52","slug":"imaginaction-ii-brings-citizens-voices-to-municipal-decision-making-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/imaginaction-ii-brings-citizens-voices-to-municipal-decision-making-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Imaginaction II brings citizens’ voices to municipal decision making process"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group of local citizens are actively consulting Town of Brome Lake residents on what they are looking for from their municipality as elected officials prepare a new five-year strategic plan. The citizens' group has officially published its own first preliminary report.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the last three months, residents living in the villages and hamlets of Fulford, Bondville, Foster, Iron Hill, Knowlton, East Hill, and West Brome have taken part in a bilingual in-depth consultation process known as Imaginaction II. Imaginaction dates back to 1989 when a group of local citizens formed a \u201ccitizen\u2019s procedure to analyze everything about the Town of Brome Lake\u201d as elected officials planned for the future of the municipality, according to Peter White, leader of Imaginaction II.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

White told CIDI that the first Imaginaction report contained a wealth of information. \u201cThey produced over six months of work, about 140 people got involved, and they produced a 96-page report, which is available in English and French, and it\u2019s amazing. It was really a complete analysis of everything about the Town of Brome Lake and the recommendations are still valid today,\u201d said White. \u201cIt\u2019s really interesting to look back at them, but nothing of that nature has been done for 25 years. When the town announced, recently, that it was going to do a new five-year strategic plan, we said hey, why don\u2019t we go back and do what they did 25 years ago?\u201d<\/p>\n

White explained to CIDI that the municipality hired consulting firm\u00a0 <\/span>Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton to help it prepare the five-year strategic plan, but the municipal process didn\u2019t involved \u201ca great deal of public consultation \u201c. That is why Imaginaction was revived. The group\u2019s preliminary report is expected to be included with the findings of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing what we found. There is a huge amount of interest in each of these places as to what is going to happen to the Town of Brome Lake. They want to make sure that we don\u2019t screw it up, that we plan it carefully, and that we keep the wonderful beauty that we have here,\u201d White said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After meeting about 140 Town of Brome Lake residents throughout July, Aug, and Sept., White highlighted the group\u2019s findings, which come down to two main themes: Town of Brome Lake residents are looking to be heard and for the municipality\u2019s identity to be preserved.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have here and what we love is the calm, the beauty, the architecture, and we don\u2019t want it to become a Bromont, we don\u2019t want it to become a Cowansville, or a Waterloo or a Sutton. The Town of Brome Lake, the beautiful village of Knowlton, our outlying communities outside, we want to keep what we have and not ruin it by overdevelopment or unplanned development, and that\u2019s a risk\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Whether their concerns are related to the lack affordable housing, uncontrolled development, more activities available to families, access to educational and daycare services, or preserving the area\u2019s water supply, what Brome Lake residents are looking for is to be made a part of the municipal decision process and for town councillors to keep the municipality\u2019s identity at the core of that decision making.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPeople feel, and I think they\u2019re right, that there has been some uncontrolled ad hoc development in Knowlton, particularity on Knowlton Road but elsewhere too. There is a housing development on Frizzle Road now that is going and some people say \u2018why didn\u2019t you have more consultation on this? What\u2019s going back there? We don\u2019t know.\u2019 We feel that it\u2019s very important to always think about not doing anything \u2018bad.\u2019 It\u2019s sort of like the hippocratic oath of doctors, don\u2019t do any harm to the patient,\u201d said White. \u201cWe\u2019re saying don\u2019t do any harm to Knowlton and anything that we do should be constructive, positive, and it should have public support. So a lot more public consultation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the publication of its preliminary report, White emphasized that Imaginaction II is ongoing and the group\u2019s next step is to encourage the six electoral districts to form their own local residents associations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe found that in each one of the six districts, there are people who would love to get engaged and they would ask \u2018how do you do it?\u2019 Well, we told them how. (\u2026) It\u2019s very simple, it doesn\u2019t have to be incorporated, it doesn\u2019t need a bank account, ... it doesn\u2019t need to spend any money, maybe just sending out notices occasionally,\u201d explained White. \"(\u2026) We\u2019re going to try to form a volunteer district resident\u2019s association, with not legal status it will just be an advisory group, but they will be able to speak to the town, and to their councillor, as the unified voice of the residents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Town planning is a big subject and it\u2019s something \u201cthat we should all think about,\u201d said White.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For more information on Imaginaction II, all public notices can be found in the weekly newspaper the Brome County News, <\/i>published every Tuesday, or an email can be sent to imaginaction2023@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Listen to the full interview below:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A group of local citizens are actively consulting Town of Brome Lake residents on what they are looking for from their municipality as elected officials prepare a new five-year strategic plan. The citizens’ group has officially published its own first preliminary report.\u00a0 Over the last three months, residents living in the villages and hamlets of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":113,"featured_media":109188,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,225],"tags":[24170,26526,31898,3655,1548,15069,7382,26382],"radio":[246],"origine":[274,259,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189494"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189494"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":190235,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189494\/revisions\/190235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189494"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=189494"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=189494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}