Council candidate Dhaval Prajapati issued an official “clarification” on his campaign facebook page.

The timeline of events:

• June: Prajapati’s initial email response was published here, where he claimed to be neutral while he “reviewed the facts.”
• September 18: Prajapati posted an official “WHERE I STAND” platform announcement on Facebook, explicitly reversing his neutrality to state: “I support Open Air.”
• 6:00 AM: My blog post went live, detailing his mid-campaign pivot from neutrality to endorsing closed streets.
• 7:25 AM: Prajapati published a lengthy follow-up post attempting to clarify his position.

Prajapati now states: “I support Open Air… But that does not mean I am saying we should continue exactly what we are doing today, every weekend, with the same hours and the same street closures.”

The New Stance: Backpedaling to Fact-Finding Position in June

Key points from his clarification:

• Admitting Lack of Information: Despite declaring full support on September 18, he now admits: “I simply do not have enough information to give you that answer” regarding how many weeks streets should close.
• Re-Opening the Footprint Question: He is now open to changing the hours, reducing the weekends, evaluating parking, and potentially moving activities to the Navy Yard.
• Proposing a New Survey: He wants yet another public survey to see what needs to change.

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The Reality: You Can’t “Clarify” Away a Physical Barrier

Scaling a barrier back from 16 weeks to 8 weeks, or shifting a closure by a few hours, does not fix the underlying problem.

A closed street is an absolute barrier to a resident who relies on their vehicle as an assistive mobility device.

Furthermore, Prajapati’s call for “another public survey” is a classic political delay tactic. Amherstburg has already conducted five Open Air surveys since 2020. In fact, in the very first resident survey back in the fall of 2023, accessibility was the number one complaint. The data already exists. Proposing more surveys ignores the facts the Town has already collected.

By making “I support Open Air” his core platform, he accepts the premise that banning vehicles from a public street grid for entertainment is acceptable. Telling a resident with a disability that their independence will only be stripped away for some of the summer, or only during certain hours, is not accessibility; it is still exclusion.

Prajapati continues to try to please both sides. He reiterates “I support Open Air. I stand by that” to please the Open Air supporters, while mentioning asking questions and running more surveys to pacify others.

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What Do You Think?

Prajapati supports Open Air but is now open to changing the hours, locations, and duration based on future data—despite accessibility already ranking as the number one complaint in the Town’s 2023 survey.

Does this timeline show a candidate who is genuinely listening, or a rapid political narrative to soften a controversial position?