Farmers’ market hot topic at meeting
A community engagement meeting attracted about 10 citizens and three councillors to City Hall on Monday evening.
It was the second in an ongoing series of casual, drop-in meetings that are expected to take place about once a month.
Now that councillors have one or two Mondays every month with no council meeting scheduled, Coun. Dean Pappas has decided to invite councillors and citizens to come and talk about municipal affairs.
The meeting began at 5:30 p.m. on Monday and was done by 6:30 p.m. Pappas was there, as well as Coun. Diane Therrien and Coun. Keith Riel.
The ongoing controversy about re-selling at the Peterborough Farmers’ Market on Saturdays was a hot topic, as well as the new casino that’s under construction and the state of snowplowing in the city.
Pappas said he’s motivated by the idea of providing citizens and councillors with a chance to have a “two-way conversation” - as opposed to formal council meetings, where citizens can have their say on a given topic and then councillors debate later.
“You need to establish two-way conversations, if you’re going to have growth in the community,” he said.
Pappas said he “absolutely ” plans to continue calling these meetings in the future, even though the first two have only attracted about a dozen people each.
“It doesn’t matter to me – all public engagement is positive,” he said.
The next opportunity for a community engagement meeting at City Hall is at 5:30 p.m. March 5.