Here's Raw Video Of What Went Down At KPR Meeting Last Night With PCVS Students

Read the Examiner's coverage of what happened here.

[YouTube]

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Backroom Briefing Q: How do You Deal With Conflicting Ideas Between Politicians & Public Servants?

Q: How do you deal with the challenge of permanent professional staff who have conflicting ideas of how our City should run compared with a temporary and yet democratically elected Council? –Michael VanDerHerberg.

Goyette: Michael is an owner of the wonderful Silver Bean and the proprietor of Peterboroughcareers.com. He indicates that his question arises from a DBIA presentation on a new public square for Peterborough. It also goes to the heart of decision making in local government.

The three traditional branches of government—legislative, executive and judicial—enjoy separate and independent areas of balanced responsibility, all functioning at the will of and in support of the electorate. City Hall deals primarily with two of these branches: the legislative branch (elected City Councillors who make laws) and the executive branch (appointed public servants who administer laws).

The fundamental distinction is that Councillors represent the value laden and often short term views of municipal electors, while public servants represent the objective and often long term interests of the municipal corporation.

Of course, the two groups work together and are reliant on each other. In their working relationship, the lines of responsibility inevitably flex and blur, based largely on the forces of personality, culture and the corporate appetite for change. Manageable conflict can be expected to arise as a result of differing perspectives: short term interests versus long term interests; popular opinion versus professional expertise; popular spending versus prudent financial management; publicity versus privacy; innovation versus inertia; the fanciful versus the practical.

Conventional wisdom holds that the best decisions are obtained when the two branches are in comfortable balance. My own experience is that the executive branch—appointed public servants—are more likely to be dominant in smaller municipalities and those with part-time Councillors. With larger municipalities and full-time Councillors, the legislative branch tends to exercise more authority. 

As I see it, the City Peterborough is now experiencing a change in this balance involving a strengthening of its legislative branch. Elected Councillors now have computers, smart phones, tablets, IT support, their first-ever modest discretionary budgets, and staff dedicated to assist them in their work. This is, I believe, a very healthy trend that will provide Councillors with resources of the sort already made available to the local MP and MPP.

Like any relationship, the key to success is to ensure a fair balance of responsibility and to create conditions conducive to mutual respect and compromise. In the ultimate expression of that relationship, and to the extent that we value representative democracy and electoral accountability, City Council is always supreme.

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David Goyette is the Executive Assistant to Peterborough Mayor Daryl Bennett. Email your burning questions for David about City Hall to feedback@ptbocanada.com.

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Video From The Wire Awards At Market Hall Last Night

[CHEX TV]

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Sign Up Now For Shifting Gears 2012

The annual transportation challenge Shifting Gears will kick off on Tuesday, May 1st, for the month of May. Be sure to sign up now and take advantage of the many events and prizes offered throughout the challenge. Help make a difference in reducing the cars on the road and make the change to bike, walk, or carpool to work!

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Julie Morris]

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Giant Book Sale Is Happening At Peterborough Library

The semi-annual Friends of the Library Giant Book Sale takes place this weekend at the Peterborough Public Library.  

People were already finding lots of deals this afternoon, toting their overflowing bags in search of the next gem.

The sale will continue Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Julie Morris]

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From Afghanistan To Iran To Peterborough: One Woman's Amazing Story Of How A City (& A School) Saved Her Life

Maryam as a baby

[September 22nd, 2016: UPDATE here.]

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The most frequently asked question I encounter is, “Why did you come to Peterborough?”

My story goes something like this.

I was eleven years old.

And I came here kicking and screaming. 

Despite the horrible circumstances in my first home in Afghanistan—and the uncertainty of refugee life in my second home in Iran—I thought I had it pretty good there.

My mom was widowed at the age of twenty-three and instead of re-marrying, she decided to spend her life taking care of her three little girls. I never felt the void of a father because my sisters and I were raised in a full house: full of extended family, love and attention.

I had the perfect childhood.

I thought I had it all.

My mom & dadI had no idea that my mother was barely getting by. Despite her brilliance and training as a teacher, she was not allowed to work in either Afghanistan or Iran: the Taliban had this thing against working women and educated girls. Iran continues to have this thing about permitting any Afghan refugee to work, period. To survive, my mother cooked, cleaned, sewed and relied heavily on her brothers’ help—an indignant, unsustainable arrangement.  

So imagine her relief when I started receiving marriage proposals at the age of ten! The idea of one less mouth to feed and one less daughter to worry about was too appealing.

She had to make a decision and she did.

A decision I resented for a long time, but today, I understand it as the biggest sacrifice my mother ever made.

I was told that I would be moving to Canada to start a new life. And I didn’t have a choice.

I was shocked, angry and heartbroken.

After travelling by various modes of transportation through Iran, Pakistan, and Jordan, I found myself in Peterborough, Ontario.

It was May 1st, 1996.

The sun was shining. The grass was green. I came face to face with my very first robin. And despite the pain of separation from my loved ones, I was hopeful. Canada was the land of opportunity, and I owed it to myself, my mother and the rest of the girls back home to make something of myself here.

And if I worked really hard, I could get an education, get a good job and eventually be reunited with the loved ones I had left behind. After all, I had survived a dangerous journey to get here and the rules that held girls back did not apply here. The worst was over!

Boy, was I wrong.

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My hopes for a smooth adjustment were shattered—not too long after they had formed.

The realities of new life started to sink in when I started school: I was the strange, foreign girl. I didn’t speak English, so I didn’t have a voice, which basically meant I did not matter. I didn’t smoke, drink, or have a social life outside school. Coming from a segregated school system, I was overwhelmed by the concept of boys and girls in the same classroom.

Sisters: Full of hopeI was teased, taunted and bullied. I didn’t have my support system to help heal the emotional bruises. My uncle and his family were here and they did the very best they could. They were coping with their own integration challenges and there was only so much they could do anyway.

And I didn’t know it at the time, but complicating the whole process were the growing pains of puberty.

Life was horrible.

I had gone from being the active, confident girl who loved life to being a miserable, isolated outcast who spent lunch hours hidden in the bathroom.

I cried myself to sleep every night that first year. I would pray to God to take me back to my family I was helpless in a strange new world, and there was nothing I could do about it.

I may not be the best Muslim out there, but what happened next has turned me into one of the strongest believers out there.

I like to think of it as ‘my miracle’.

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My mom and meNo prayer goes unanswered and a bitter, broken me was brought back to life by the kindness of strangers.

In my darkest hour, I witnessed the attentive care of staff and volunteers at the New Canadians Centre. When I had nowhere to go, I found a safe haven and a turning point at the YWCA's Crossroads Shelter. When I thought I had no family here, I was rejuvenated by the love of the Sisters of St. Joseph and found a home with Sister Ruth Hennessey's Casa Maria refugee home.  

People I did not know, who spoke a different language, who believed in a different God, were hanging our curtains, finding us furniture, taking us shopping, encouraging us to explore Peterborough and feel at home.

Just when I thought I had to look, talk and dream like everyone else, I was accepted into the Integrated Arts Program at PCVS. For the first time since coming to Canada, I was encouraged to discover all the things that were unique about me and to nurture those traits. I made friends who actually liked and respected me. I connected with educators who saw something in me and went out of their way to make sure I saw it too.

The Monsef Women with brother in law (photograph by JESS MELNIK) I said it before and I'll say it again: PCVS saved my life.

My family joke that I am married to Peterborough... and they are not too far off.

It may have started out as an arranged marriage of sorts with many ups and downs, but we are in a good place now.

Like many successful marriages out there, ours is going strong because the people around us are helping to make it work—another blessing to celebrate on our sixteenth anniversary in Peteborough, on May 1st (most likely at the Silver Bean).

This kind of love is a very special kind of love. It doesn’t come around twice in a lifetime and I will love and honor Peterborough all the days of my life.

It took a while, but I finally understand why my mother did what she did to bring us girls to Peterborough. She found the courage to leave behind everything that mattered because she wanted her daughters to have the opportunity to fully participate and positively contribute to society.

Check out more of our story in this video segment below, and how my mother brought us here...

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This is Maryam Monsef's first piece for PtboCanada.com. We welcome her as a new contributor.

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Silver Bean Café Running Poster Contest to Countdown To Opening Day

It won't be long before we are sipping coffee and snacking on delicious cookies looking out over Little Lake from the Silver Bean Café. The café will open for the season on Tuesday, May 1st. To get the word out about the opening, they are running a poster contest throughout downtown. Keep your eye out for a chance to win a $5 gift certificate.  

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Julie Morris and Photo by Evan Holt]

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A New Subway Is Coming to Parkhill Plaza

Apparently our Subway's per capita haven't been met, as a new one is coming to the plaza at Parkhill and Monaghan.

They should get some good traffic from St. Peter's students.

[Contributed by PtboCanada's Evan Holt]

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