New appointments to Mayor’s Task Force on Community Engagement

New appointments to the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Engagement were announced at council last night (Jan. 8). While some feel that the task force is overkill and would like to see council spend more time engaging and less time talking about engaging, the mayor and task force see value in asking the community their thoughts on how to move forward.

The task force appointments come after council received the Draft Community Engagement Report from the task force last month which included a recommendation to hold round table meetings to get community feedback on the report.

With the new appointments, the task force is made up of Coun. Tara Ney (chair), Coun. Eric Zhelka, Coun. Michelle Kirby, Naomi Pope, Andrew Appleton, Esther Paterson, and Jan Mears.

Mayor Nils Jensen says the next step for the task force is to organize and hold community forums in the next few months. The task force’s final report, following the community forums, will then be presented to council in the spring.