Tuesday night, at the Kingston city council meeting, councillors voted in favour of requesting that Queen’s provide financial compensation for the costs of having the police, fire and ambulance services on Aberdeen Street during Homecoming weekend.
They also approved the creation of a committee directed at finding ways to thwart any future illegal activity in the Sydenham district. It should be noted that council voted to remove a clause to potentially grant police the ability to use more drastic measures to control crowds. It was impressive that—for the most part—councillors were able to make rational decisions. Floyd Patterson, councillor for Sydenham district and Rick Downes, councillor for King’s Town, were particularly well-informed and level-headed. Patterson moved for the creation of the committee.
It is our hope that this new committee will not only address general student-city relations, like the Principal’s Task Force on Community Relations, but also discuss possible initiatives to prevent events of Aberdeen’s magnitude from occurring in coming years. The decisions of this committee will have a great impact on the future of Homecoming. Extensive research must be conducted in order for the committee to come up with lasting and effective long-term solutions.
of the University istration and the AMS will also sit on this committee. It was good to see the AMS in attendance at Tuesday’s meeting, representing the students. The AMS has an important task ahead of them. Without their diligence to ensure student voices are heard and taken into , any future solutions won’t work. It is necessary, however, to establish that the University was not responsible for the events on Aberdeen. It made the effort to present an alternative in holding the Miller Hall concert. Students in attendance at Aberdeen should take responsibility for their actions and perhaps offer to help the city pay for the upwards of $60,000 in costs. Two groups of students have already taken it upon themselves to raise money to help Bob Hanson, the owner of the car that was set ablaze. Perhaps some of those proceeds could be redirected towards helping the city with the costs incurred, and more students could contribute to the fundraisers with that in mind.
The creation of a committee to find definitive solutions to prevent further incidents like the events on Aberdeen is a good start. This will hopefully facilitate discussion, preventing any rash or spur-of-the-moment decisions from being made.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be ed, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to [email protected].