Discussion and dialogue have not worked

How do we know? Here are two signifcant examples:

 Example1.

After the 2005 Aberdeen St. mini-riot,  City Council struck a Committee for the Safe and Legal Use of  Public and Private Space, chaired by Councillor Floyd Patterson The Committee included 2 citizen representatives, and met frequently through the winter and spring of 2006

The final report of the committee, which Council adopted,  clearly stated that Homecoming Events should take place in NON-RESIDENTIAL settings (Clause [a]).  After Council adopted the report in  July 2006, nothing was heard until the agenda for a Council meeting in late August contained a motion to close Aberdeen Street (a residential street) for Homecoming--completely contrary to the Committe report Council had adopted a month earlier!

It turned out that during the summer, city administrators, Queen's administration, and the AMS had secret discussions from which emerged what we view as an end run around the recommendations of the Committee. Councillor Patterson, the Committee Chair, was bypassed and not consulted. One of the citizen members who sat on the committee was shocked. That citizen member felt that apparently he had wasted several months of his life sitting on a Committee whose recommendations were ignored. And the community, surely a major stakeholder, was shut out of the city staff-Queen's-AMS talks, over the summer, which reversed the recommendation of the Committee.

Our community was misled. We have lost faith in the dialogue and discussion route.

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