City of Toronto Ombudsman To Hold Meeting In Scarborough

by John Laforet
posted on October 19th, 2009 at 00:25:13 am

I want to start by saying having an City of Toronto Ombudsman is an incredibly important thing and something I think can be said to be a success of the current City Council.

An Ombudsman helps address systemic barriers to action within an organization. At the City of Toronto, this is an extremely important addition to an organization that is sometimes as clear as mud. One of the problems with an 8.6 billion dollar organization with thousands of employees, dozens of programs and departments and work locations is that it is easy for someone from outside that structure to get lost within it, and see their issue unresolved.

The fact that the Ombudsman is holding ‘regional’ meetings within the City to get out there so people know about the service, how to access her office and seek resolutions this way is extremely important.

I’m quite happy she will be at the Scarborough Civic Centre on Tuesday from 7 to 9PM to meet with Scarborough residents and get a sense of the situation on the ground.

All too often the experience I hear when I speak to folks who have contacted a municipal politician or sought help with a challenging aspect of service delivery from the City is one of a run around. I know from personal experience what a frustrating waste of time it can be trying to navigate contentious issues at City Hall because the mentality appears to be that it is safer for the individual on the other side of the phone, desk or computer to ‘shut down’ instead of help you to resolve whatever has brought you there.

In the absence of an army of effective Councillors to use their muscle to seek resolution on behalf of constituents an office like the office of Ombudsman is extremely important and while a very new experiment in Toronto – one I hope will be extremely successful in helping people access their government efficiently and effectively. Let’s hope she and her seven staff can make it happen.