All three mayoral candidates can agree on one thing: Queen’s students need to vote.
“I encourage the students to exercise the franchise since they are part of the community,” said incumbent Harvey Rosen.
Rosen, councillor Kevin George and councillor Rick Downes participated in a discussion and debate Friday at the Policy Studies Building.
About 100 of the Queen’s and Kingston community attended the debate.
In his opening statements, Downes emphasized his environmental pragmatism
and his disagreement with the proposed location of Kingston’s large venue entertainment centre.
George focused on treating residents of all municipal districts equally and alleviating of heavy property taxes.
Rosen said he hopes to encourage Queen’s students to stay in Kingston after graduating.
“Kingston has many strengths as a city, but it is not retaining people who study here,” he said.
George said the municipal government should be more forthcoming in the information it communicates to residents.
“Our job is to communicate facts as we, as politicians, know them,” he said.
Finding a solution to rising property taxes was a common concern for all candidates.
“Queen’s Park and Ottawa need to recognize that Eastern Ontario is not a prosperous part of Ontario,” Rosen said.
All candidates recognized Queen’s University as an integral part of the city.
“When students come to Kingston you are entitled to the rights [of other residents], but you need to have a healthy balance between rights and responsibilities,” Downes said.
Andy Williams, ArtSci ’07, said he attended the debate because, as a full-time Kingston resident, he’s interested in local issues.
“I don’t think many [Queen’s students] care because they are gone for a lot of the year,” he said
Cam Norman, ConEd ’07, asked why students were not properly informed about changes to the recycling program, and how the candidates feel about their responsibility towards students.
Rosen responded that he would consider giving extra notices to students as transient residents to help inform them of occurrences within the city.
Other audience questions concerned a need for increased bicycle rights, the effects of construction and the increasing polarization between rich and poor in Kingston.
Rosen attributed the polarization to past municipal policies.
“There is pronounced social polarization because there has been poor planning in the past of concentrating affordable housing in one area,” he said.
Downes said his platform strives for the greatest good for the greatest number of Kingston residents.
Despite contention over many municipal issues, all candidates agreed that a post-secondary institution’s involvement in the municipality will foster more grassroots movements and expressions of public opinion.
The municipal election takes place Nov. 13.
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