You might remember that I requested a copy of the April 18 Strategy Corp. slide presentation to Amherstburg town council and CAO Critchley advised, As the slides used by Strategy Corp are proprietary information, should you wish a copy of the presentation, please submit an MFIPPA request.
In an email to council and Critchley, I strongly urged council to enact a Routine Disclosure Policy, but no responses were received.
The May 17 Essex County Council Strategy Corp. slide presentation was attached to the agenda.
On May 18, I emailed Strategy Corp. and mentioned how the slides were not on Amherstburg town council’s April 18 agenda. I requested a copy of the Amherstburg presentation and requested permission to post it to my blog for my readers.
On May 18, my email was acknowledged and it would be looked at.
On June 9 I followed up to find out if the public can access the Amherstburg presentation the same way the public accessed the county presentation.
On June 17 I followed up again. And, upon completing the Strategic plan survey, I added, ‘there is no mention of accommodating people with disabilities if pop up events pose barriers, as does the online survey. it was disappointing to see accessibility as an item separated from the DEI, but a number of the disability community know too well that accessibility is not usually a part of DEI.’
On June 20, Strategy Corp. emailed: In response to your more recent comment, we have been directing folks who require accommodation to reach out to the town directly at 519-736-0012 or accessibility@amherstburg.ca. This had been included in promotional material but was missing from the webpage. I have updated the webpage to include those instructions, so thank you for bringing that to our attention!
While I do understand that accessibility is considered a key part of DEI, our previous engagement up to the survey development has indicated that accessibility, in particular, is a concern and priority for the Town. We therefore thought it appropriate to include it as a distinct option for residents to prioritize. As you rightly point out, not everyone realizes accessibility is a key part DEI efforts.
Finally, I do apologize again about the delay on the presentation. This type of material has historically been considered proprietary, and that is why it was not attached to the Council agenda for April 18. However, the presentation itself was recorded in an attempt to maximize transparency for residents interested the process being undertaken. I will follow up with my colleagues about what we are able to share with you directly, and get back to you this week.
On June 20, within an hour, Strategy Corp. emailed, these slides are considered proprietary and I was asked to direct my readers to watch the full presentation to Council on the Town’s website here: April 18th Special Council Meeting Video. I’ll note we had some brief technical difficulties during the presentation and so the presentation gets going around the 6-minute mark.
Related: Strategic Planning Presentation – File an FOI Request
the burg watch 