Special Committee on Governance -- Consultation with Neighbourhood Associations -- Workshop

At their meeting on April 12, 2019, the Special Committee on Governance asked staff to provide targeted engagement opportunities for neighbourhood associations across Toronto to reflect on the impacts to the City's governance structures and decision-making processes that resulted from a reduction in the size of Council. Neighbourhood associations (NAs) are local, geographically focused groups such as neighbourhood coalitions, groups and partnerships, organizations that receive City grants to support community networking, ratepayer groups and resident associations.

This data set is from a workshop with neighbourhood associations held on 1 October 2019 at Metro Hall in which participants completed two table exercises. In the first exercise, participants prioritized one City program or governance process on a list of twelve that they felt did not work well, and made suggestions for what could be done to improve it. In a second table exercise, participants were asked to write down and discuss what they imagined an Office of Neighbourhoods to be, what it would do, how would it run, and how would it relate to their group.

Other activities targeted to neighbourhood associations included an online survey open from September 10 until October 4, 2019, and pop-up consultations held at the Civic Centres from September 24-30, 2019. The data from the survey and pop-up consultations has been retained due to concerns about privacy, but the compiled results of these consultations are included in a document titled, "Summary of Input from Neighbourhood Associations to the Special Committee on Governance" which can be found at: https://www.toronto.ca/special-committee-on-governance-consultations/

Additional data sets are available as part of the public consultations for the Special Committee on Governance. These include:

"Special Committee on Governance – Online survey on civic governance and decision-making" is a data set which includes the responses to a public survey about what was working and what needed improvement with respect to Council's decision-making bodies and processes, as well as city-led and community-led civic engagement processes. The survey was broadly advertised and accessible on the www.toronto.ca/TOgovernance website from June 1 until July 27, 2019.

"Special Committee on Governance -- Public Consultations on Civic Governance and decision making" is a data set which contains the notes gathered from five consultations held from June 10-17, 2019, in civic centres across Toronto to better understand the public’s perspective on the City’s decision-making structures and processes. The data set also includes responses from a dedicated discussion with participants of the City's Neighbourhood Improvement Area (NIA) Planning Tables held on July 24, 2019.

GV4.2 (September 11, 2019) "Report from the City Manager on Special Committee on Governance: Public Consultation and Work Plan Update" http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2019/gv/bgrd/backgroundfile-137449.pdf

GV4.2 Attachment 1 – "Details on Public Engagement Activities" http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2019/gv/bgrd/backgroundfile-137468.pdf