Russell a mediator for city council
Town Ward candidate wants to listen, then lead
Since our city council has so consistently come to decisions with a 6-5 vote, and a certain ideological split has become apparent between the corporate and business-minded councilors and the social/environmental/change-oriented ones, I think it may be time for Jim Russell to take his place at that table.
Jim, who is running in Town Ward and lives along Little Lake with his partner Tammy, has been in Peterborough seven years; having long hoped for an opening so he could come from Toronto and live here.
Jim was a close friend of the wellknown writer Charles Foran and his wife Mary, and frequently visited them.
He came to sense something unique about our place: The size, the composition, the location, the arts, the social conscience and the liveability.
So when the position of executive director of United Way came open, Jim quickly applied and was selected. And anyway, the city lost the Forans to Toronto!
Jim has over 30 years of front line work and senior leadership in the not-for-profit sector. He has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from Ryerson and the University of Toronto.
He grew up in a politically aware family.
“My siblings,” he muses, “include one socialist, one Conservative, one Liberal and one not-really-interested in party politics.”
“I chose the municipal level because I am fairly distrustful of party loyalties and herd thinking which often prevails at the federal and provincial levels. I disdain partisanship.”
He smiles. “I would invite 15 proParkway and 15 anti-Parkway enthusiasts to meet in a room. I’d give them bread and water, and only let them out when a solution, a compromise of some kind, had been reached”.
He has obviously thought deeply about our community context. “What are really to be valued is not alignments, but principles. One needs enough healthy ego to change one’s mind at times. The question is, what is better for poor people in this situation and fifty years down the road?”
Looking at our downtown population and our shelters, I think Jim Russell’s social justice voice is needed at the table.
“The city belongs to those who choose to live here. You will notice many of the candidates this time are from away. That is healthy for the possibilities of politics. The quickest way to change people’s lives is by the stroke of a pen at the social policy level and that is why it matters when it comes to political leaders we choose,” he says.
“We should elect councilors for their good judgment. All should have the desire to drive towards consensus. I thought long and hard about running. My motto has always been: listen, and then lead. People are mentioning to me that at council there is a party of six and a party of five. Not the best for good governance.”
Interestingly, Jim Russell spent five years at Daybreak in Richmond Hill at the Jean Vanier- inspired L’Arche community, where the differently-abled live with assistants in a mutual relationship.
He was then in his 20s, influenced by a Canadian priest we discovered we both knew: the late Fr. Brian Massie, S.J with whom I worked in Kingston, Jamaica in a campaign against capital punishment.
Jim would like to see more animation downtown, not more police. He urges more understanding and compassion for those with mental health and addiction problems.
“There are broken people,” he says. “For most, it is not character flaws that have brought them to a low point, but lack of opportunity. The first response from individuals should be sympathy, and council should respond too.”
I look forward to a walk downtown led by Jim Russell, as he models approaches to those seated on the sidewalks with begging bowls.
“Our level of homelessness is unacceptably high,” he says.
We need a five-year housing strategy, accelerated.”
“Consider what this community looks like to young people,” he says. “Are we a phoenix rising, or a city in decline?’
I’d rather like to see Mr. Russell providing this thinking at City Hall.
Visit www.jimrussell.ca.
‘Are we a phoenix rising, or a city in decline?’
JIM RUSSELL
TOWN WARD CANDIDATE