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Artificial Intelligence vs Democracy

Run to the hills, the computers are coming! Whether you’re excited about the growing potential of AI to change our world, or deeply concerned about it, you’re also probably getting tired of hearing about it by now. There’s been a ton of analysis about whether or not a computer will take your job (the answer…

Small Town Sprawl

We’re working through the Strategic Planning process, and we just had a series of public engagement opportunities where residents could talk about their vision and hopes for Brighton’s future, their recommendations for new initiatives or improvements, and even their concerns and frustrations. Excellent exercises, and we had over 60 of our neighbours participate. Going through…

Process and Delay

Government processes are the perfect example of how to make something simple and straightforward into something convoluted, costly, and time consuming. At least, that’s how it seems much of the time, and I hear the same from residents pretty regularly. I also hear the same from (typically conservative) politicians, often as a good reason to…

Crossing Lines

Long before I was elected, people knew me as “the politics guy” and would ask “who do I talk to about ______?” Very often, the person was barking up the wrong tree: what they thought was a provincial issue was actually municipal, or federal. Sometimes it wasn’t a government issue at all, actually a union…

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About Me

Welcome! I will post here about my approach to municipal politics, the values that are foundational to that approach, and some ideas for what that might look like in Brighton. All of my posts here are my own reflections on issues or events, and interpretations of the processes and structures that shape our municipal government. My goal here is to empower my readers to engage in local government by giving them relevant information, with links to authoritative sources. I am not an authoritative source: I do not speak on behalf of the municipality (that’s the Mayor’s job), and my interpretation of a law or policy is my own. Even so, I hope that my posts here can help make the system more understandable and easily accessible, so that you can get better use of it. If you see me here commenting on matters that are confidential, still before Council, or in ways that misrepresent a matter, please drop me a line and I will quickly change it; my goal is to counter misinformation, not add to it!

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