Therrien would hold more drop-ins
Bennett says city council listens to people but then has to make difficult decisions
Diane Therrien said that if elected mayor, she’ll host neighbourhood drop-ins as a way to be “available and accessible” — though Mayor Daryl Bennett says council listens to citizens and then makes the difficult decisions it was elected to make.
Therrien and Bennett were debating at The Venue on Thursday evening; they’d been asked how they’d alter the perception that city council doesn’t listen to people.
Therrien said she’s concerned that people don’t feel heard.
“It undermines our democracy,” she said.
She said her policy platform includes hosting informal meetings in places such as city parks, where parents might come, meet her and bring their children.
She also talked about how she’d consider a ranked-ballot system in the next municipal election and how she’d like to see a revival of the participatory budget program, which gives citizens tax money to fund community-improvement projects of their choice.
“That’s so people have a say over where their tax dollars are going — and they feel ownership and pride,” Therrien said.
But Bennett said he’s not hearing that council needs to listen more.
“What I hear is, ‘We elected you to do a job,’” he said. “We listen to people…. But at the end of the day you have to make a decision. We will continue to do that.”
“But there’s a sign above the mayor’s office that says No Entry,” Therrien said to raucous applause. “It doesn’t set the right tone.”
Bennett said the sign is in fact in the hall leading to the mayor’s office and it’s there to give staff privacy while they work.
It’s necessary because people sometimes wander into City Hall and cause a disturbance, Bennett said: “The signs are there to protect people — they deserve to work in privacy, and they deserve to work in safety.”
The Venue was packed on Thursday evening for the debate, which was organized by the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown BIA and the Women’s Business Network.
There’s only two candidates for mayor in the Oct. 22 municipal election: Bennett, 70, has been mayor for eight years and Therrien, 32, has been a city councillor in Town Ward for four years.
Occasionally during the debate they agreed: they both said they wouldn’t opt out of marijuana retail sales in the city, for instance, and they both said Morrow Park appears to be a preferable site to build a new arena/ major entertainment centre than the downtown site proposed on Townsend St. (which is cramped, they both said, and lacking space for parking).
But at other moments there were stark contrasts in their answers, such as when Bennett reiterated how he thinks the downtown will only feel safe for all when police start cracking down on “drug-related activity” and Therrien called for a compassionate approach.
“Poverty, addictions, mental health and lack of housing are interrelated issues that need to
be dealt with,” she said. “We need to be approaching this problem with compassion and understanding.”
Tell that to the person who’s been mugged downtown, Bennett replied: “He’s looking for someone to make an arrest.”
Therrien pointed out that the city’s in the grips of an opioid crisis.
“They’re legally-obtained prescriptions that people are selling on the street,” she said. “Are you proposing to arrest pharmacists?”
But Bennett replied that he was confronted by a man recently who angrily told him that his last dollar went to pay off a debt to a drug dealer.
The man couldn’t make his rent, Bennett said, and now he’s homeless and expecting the city to bail him out.
“We’re going to get to the root of that problem,” Bennett said.
When asked what they would like their legacies to be, Therrien prefaced her answer by saying she believes in holding office for two terms and then stepping aside for the next leader.
She said she’d like to be remembered as someone who encouraged young people to vote, “and to eventually run for office.”
She also said she would want the new Official Plan to be completed under her watch.
“We want to get that plan finished — and make sure it’s adhered to,” she said.
Bennett said he doesn’t think about personal goals — he’s more concerned with community needs and what can be accomplished together.
“It’s not my legacy — it’s our legacy,” he said.
If he could help create “a stable environment” in Peterborough, he said, it would be enough.
“That, to me, is a major accomplishment.”