Council has vigorously pursued the development of distant suburbs and has forgotten about the needs of mature neighbourhoods close to the downtown core. I believe that it is reasonable to expect that some of the taxes we pay for living in mature neighbourhoods stay in mature neighbourhoods to maintain and improve infrastructure and services.

Communities have been left out of the loop on many decisions that affect their livability. I am committed to developing a responsive process that involves communities at the conceptual phase of planning and policy initiatives. By bringing communities, city administrators, planners and private developers together at the onset of a project or policy change all parties will be in a better position to express their positions, address concerns and realize acceptable outcomes.

Council has remained eerily quiet on the issue of school closures. Although the only guaranteed way to save our community schools is to elect trustees that commit themselves to keeping them open, City Council can offer alternatives to the EPSB that make school closures much less attractive - something that has not been done.

Edmonton has become an expensive city in which to live. Housing costs now account for the largest portion of many families' budgets. At present there is no long term strategy to encourage the development of family friendly affordable housing in our city. This must be made a priority of our next council.

Our taxes keep increasing because of the infrastructure costs connected with urban sprawl. By encouraging families to move into mature neighbourhoods we can maximize the use of our existing infrastructure and keep our taxes under control.

Our current council has focused on building huge big box recreation facilities at the far ends of the city. A livable city needs recreation facilites that you can walk or ride your bike to. We need to renovate existing and build new community sized pools, skating rinks, and tennis courts in our mature neigbhourhoods.

Several of our communities (Boyle Street, Central McDougall, McCauley) have taken on more than their fair share of supportive social housing. Such a concentration of individuals in need of support in so few neighbourhoods does not create an environment that promotes success - the reality is that it creates even more problems. All communities should participate in providing safe and secure homes from which our most disadvantaged citizens can work to overcome their difficulties.

No one wants to live in a concrete jungle. Preservation, maintenance and improvement of our green spaces is essential to our quality of life and needs to be given a new impetus.

Concentrating police in large divisional detachments isolates them from the community. We can make our streets safer by expanding our community police station network and growing our cooperative citizen/police foot patrol programs.

The community league is one of the cornerstones of a neighbourhood (more so now that so many of our schools are being closed). Many of our league buildings are over forty years old and in desperate need of repair. The leagues cannot maintain and upgrade their facilities by themselves - it takes far too long to raise money through gaming revenue, bake sales and bottle drives. A capital program aimed at rejuvenating our league buildings is excellent investment in our communities.