Priority 06
Plain-language reporting, real notice before decisions, and a councillor who answers the email.
Most people do not have three hours on a Tuesday evening to decode a staff report. That should not be the price of having a say in what happens on your street.
Decisions that change a neighbourhood are frequently technically public and practically invisible: posted in a package, listed on an agenda, described in language that takes training to parse. The result is residents finding out at the construction-notice stage, when the useful moment to comment has passed.
A ward councillor can fix a lot of this without any bylaw change at all: a regular plain-language ward update, notice ahead of decisions that affect specific streets, and open office hours in the ward rather than only at Town Hall.
Where a change does require council, it is worth pushing for: earlier and clearer notice, agendas that state the actual decision in one sentence at the top, and delegated-authority decisions reported publicly rather than absorbed into staff process.
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