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Windsor’s bicycling advocates are taking issue with the mayor’s description of some of them being less than collaborative when it comes to their advocacy work.
At least part of the reason city council last week decided on “shaking up” its advisory committees was the politicians’ perception that a number of the members they’d appointed had gone beyond just dispensing advice.
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“We’ve had some committees where some of the members that we appointed use their position to weaponize their position against city hall,” Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens said last week.
Asked to elaborate, the mayor named the Windsor Bicycling Committee as one such advisory body that has been “weaponized against the city.”
The dictionary definition of weaponized is “exploited for the purpose of attacking a person or group, or for spreading discord.”
“I really don’t know where this is coming from. I consider it unfriendly language,” said two-term bike committee member Klaus Dohring. “I certainly did not feel that anyone was weaponizing anything.”
The local businessman said members of the committee have been “very active advocating for improved bicycling and active transportation … but I’m not aware of any hostile atmosphere.”
Dohring sees that advocacy work as having led to progress, with “growing support” in recent years in the community for cycling and active transportation.
“Weaponized? That’s way over the top,” said Bike Windsor Essex executive director Lori Newton.
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She never sat on the committee that disappeared last week after nearly 40 years, but Newton said members of her group and the local cycling community at large feel they were all being targeted, simply for advocating for improved local cycling infrastructure.
“I can’t understand that at all — nothing radical ever came out of that committee,” said Newton, pointing to its activities like promoting Open Streets and providing bike parking on Ford Fireworks night.
“In no way can you point to anything that was politically onerous — we did everything in our power to work constructively,” said Ward 9 Coun. Kieran McKenzie, who chaired the bicycling committee until it was dissolved last Thursday.
Every proposal put forward by the bicycling committee was given “unanimous or near-unanimous support by council,” he said.
Under the changes approved last week, some advisory committees — like the bicycling committee which becomes the Active Transportation Expert Panel — will now simply become an on-call resource to provide administration with expertise on specific issues as needed.
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“The way into the council agenda is now more onerous on certain items — and active transportation would be one of them,” said McKenzie, who told his colleagues he’s worried community input will be lost.
Under the new model, McKenzie told the Star he doubts an innovative project expected to launch this year — a handheld city bike trail map smartphone app — would have made it.
Administration proposed the active transportation panel to include other members beyond what it calls “hardcore cyclists.”
Newton and Dohring said the local cycling community made just such a proposal several years ago but that city administration rejected it at the time.
And Dilkens isn’t backing down from his comments.
“It’s all about being constructive,” he told the Star Wednesday. The mayor said it became “readily apparent” to himself and other councillors that, in the past, some advisory committee members “were going off-script on their mandates to push personal agendas.
“We want to work collaboratively.”
Newton said she would welcome such an approach. She’d like to see city hall view cycling as more than just recreational and plan for it as a serious local transportation option, including for “the 30 per cent of Windsor’s population who can’t drive.”
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On a recent tour of Detroit’s expanding cycling infrastructure, Newton said she observed the economic growth benefits Windsor’s Michigan neighbour is beginning to enjoy as a result.
“You go to Detroit and you know you’re in a cycling city — pop-up restaurants and shops. Windsor is certainly not recognizing the tourism piece to this, and it’s huge,” said Newton, who cites other area cities similarly embracing cycling, like Hamilton and London.
“Here, it’s been a struggle,” she said.
Going forward, McKenzie suggests one of the best ways to get creative new ideas onto the city hall and council agendas might be to communicate directly with the mayor’s office and the 10 council members.
dschmidt@postmedia.com
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