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From neighbourhood concerns to ideas for our future, this is where I share what’s on my mind and what I’m hearing around town. Explore my latest posts and join the conversation.
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Erika In Elora - CW Ward 1
(opens in a new tab)🏛️ Running for Centre Wellington Council - Ward 1
🛍️ Small business owner
🌿 Sustainability advocate
🤝 Transparency • Accountability • Community First
(This account is for campaign purposes)
On Thursday night I had the honour of hearing Peter MacLeod speak at the art centre about his new book, Democracy’s Second Act. A huge thank you to John Scott, Kathy, Green Lanes, and the Bespoke group for organising the evening and inviting us. I have loved these Bespoke events because I always walk away with so much to think about.When asked about CW’s biggest challenge during this election, I’ve deliberately chosen not to make my answers about growth. Not because growth isn’t important, but because I think we’ve become so focused on debating individual issues that we’re overlooking something much more fundamental that is how we make decisions in the first place.Something Peter talks about really struck me. We spend so much time talking about how people don’t trust their governments. But what about the fact that governments don’t seem to trust their people?He made a fascinating point about juries. If you had to trust a group of people to make an important decision, would you rather have it decided by a vote, or by a jury of ordinary people who have to make a unanimous decision by deliberating and listening to the evidence? Most of us would choose the jury. He also spoke about Ireland, where citizens’ assemblies have become an established part of the democratic process, and Irish politicians regularly campaign on issues they will bring to citizen assembly if elected. And it made me wonder why we don’t ask a different question of our politicians, instead of just asking what they would do about an issue, what if we asked what issues they would put before a citizens’ assembly, and what are they willing do with what they hear? As an example, every election we ask candidates whether they personally support allowing cannabis stores. Some say yes, others say no, and then we elect a council and hope enough of them agree with us. I’ve been clear that I support allowing cannabis retail. But what if we also gave a representative group of residents the opportunity to properly examine the evidence, hear different perspectives and develop recommendations for council?And if we can do that with one issue, why not bigger questions about how we spend public money, plan our neighbourhoods, or manage tourism?I simply don’t believe the issues are fixed by electing different people every four years. We also need to change what happens between elections. We can spend another four years debating growth, development and parking, but unless we address the growing distance between residents and the people making decisions on their behalf, I worry we’ll keep having the same conversations, with the same frustrations, and very little progress.We should be building a municipal government that trusts its residents, not just asking residents to trust their municipal government. Because democracy cannot stop on election day. #ErikaForWard1
This article from Strong Towns talks about something I think is very relevant to CW and to the conversation around the multi use recreation facility in the capital plan and why I think it’s a mistake. I’m not against recreation facilities, but I also don’t think the best way to support recreation is building a shiny new expensive state of the art facility that everyone has to drive to.Strong Towns calls it building for “game day” instead of every day. And what if instead we actually planned for the places people already live and what they use every day. Neighbourhood parks. Basketball courts. Safe streets where kids can bike and play. Walking routes. Shade trees and benches. Public spaces where kids can run around and parents can actually sit down. Smaller recreation spaces people can walk to without registering, paying or planning their evening around it.Those things may not be as shiny as a massive new facility. But they affect residents lives every day of the year. So when we talk about how CW spends money, I keep referring back to the MURF as the example for this reason. A 55 million dollar facility in 2025 construction dollars won’t even be built at that cost 5 or even 10 years down the line. Now this 55 million dollar facility becomes a 90 million dollar facility in 2035. So, instead of budgeting for the best and biggest project in 10 years, the Strong Towns argument is what can we do to actually make it better to live here every day, starting now. “If we want to support families, the simplest and most powerful thing we can do is build environments where kids can play and parents don’t have to hover. A family friendly city isn’t one with the best soccer academy or the shiniest hockey rinks, it’s the one where parents can finish a cup of coffee while their kids play within sight. We had $280 million to invest in Langley’s children. Instead of investing in the everyday spaces that make daily life easier and more joyful, we went for the spectacle and in the process, left childhood and parents on the sidelines.” ...www.strongtowns.org/journal/2026-1-14-we-build-for-game-day-not-every-day?
We Build for Game Day, Not Every Day | Strong Towns
www.strongtowns.org
Why Langley’s investments miss what families actually need.
Somewhere along the way, we started acting like loving your town means you're supposed to love EVERYTHING about it. I just don't think that's how this works.You can love your downtown and still question why a storefront has been empty for five years. You can appreciate a packed festival Saturday and still wonder why downtown looks so empty at 2 PM on a random Wednesday. You can support the organizations doing the work and still ask, "Could we be doing this better?"In fact, I think that's PART of loving where you live.I don't want our small towns to become smaller versions of Nashville or New York City. I want them to become really, really good versions of themselves. Places where young people can see a future. Where someone with an idea can actually figure out how to open the doors with a lower barrier of entry. I want existing business owners to truly feel like the community is invested in whether or not they make it.Getting there means we have to be willing to talk about what's working AND what's not because sometimes the people asking the most questions are the ones who can see what it could truly be. We need more of those folks.Go ask some questions of your small town. ❤️
The places we love to visit are often the places that are also the nicest to live.I am not talking about the seedy beach towns of the world, built entirely around extraction and spectacle. Those places exist for the visitor and the visitor alone.I'm talking about the places people fall in love with and start imagining what it would be like to actually live there. The walkable historic downtown. The charming neighborhood full of local restaurants. The town that feels alive because real people actually live and work there.Those places aren't built for tourists. Tourists just show up because residents made them so good.You can think of ten places like that right now. All of them have strong tourism. All of them have high quality of life. All of them have high property values.Every single place that has put residents first is winning on every front.The tourist trap wins in the short term and hollows out in the long term.The resident-first town wins forever.
Regular old residents are way down the list of people we think about when running our communities.Big businesses drive most decisions. Especially those located in some other town. Because we love big businesses, we put to work a whole cadre of experts and give them the community keys to try and entice the big business folks.Then comes the tourist. If they come to town, things are going to be real cool. So we put together another team focused entirely on what tourists want and how to get them to drop off their cash.We go through enormous effort trying to get people to our towns. But the strange thing is, there are already a bunch of people that live there. Every town. You can tell because when you drive around you can see their houses and apartments. They have already made the decision to call your town home.What if we made them a priority?What if we treated them as well as we treat the out-of-towner?Funny enough, the places we love to visit are the places that are also the nicest to live. The towns that put residents first are winning on every single front. Strong tourism, high quality of life, high property values, thriving local businesses.It turns out, when you take care of the people who already live there, everyone else wants to show up too.
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