Last night was the first of hopefully many budget input sessions that myself, Rick Di Lorenzo, Zeeshan Hamid and Sharon Barkley put on for residents in wards 1, 6, 7 & 8.
We were also lucky enough to have fellow councillor Rick Malboeuf and Region Councillor Colin Best attend as well. That’s 6 sets of ears listening to peoples input on important issues that Milton faces in this years budget talks.
As I mentioned when we started the meeting opportunities for residents to provide input to town councillors have come few and far between in the past. The last session I remember happening in this format was back on a rainy night in November of 2009 held by Colin Best.
Last nights session was nothing short of great. As we were ending the discussion between people continued…which is awesome. I hated to cut it off at that point.
There were a number of topics discussed from Fire, Transit, Parks, Roads, Taxes etc that we could have a full town hall meeting on its own but we were limited to only 2 hours.
Thanks to everyone who came and for those who didn’t come who sent me and other councillors feedback that we will incorporate into a report we will send to staff. These comments and concerns will be included in the budget discussions for the 2012 year and I cant thank you enough for having your say.
I know I’d like to have another one sometime soon as we get closer to November and items from other departments come out in reports and garner more discussion. The only difficulty I see is that the provincial election is gearing up and I don’t want this to fall by the wayside (plus I’ll be going around bugging party leaders with my GROW MILTON HOSPITAL signs 
)
Thanks to my colleagues who came out to answer questions, get involved in discussions and helped make it truly a team effort last night.