The Ward 2 2019 Year in Review
My first year as your city councillor has flown by, but it has been a very exciting and productive first year.
In 2019 engaging the residents of Ward 2 has meant:
- Hosting 3 public townhall meetings
- Responding to over 2000 of your emails
- An average of 4000 social media engagements a month
I want to thank everyone who has taken the time to share your thoughts, ideas, questions and concerns. It is important for me to hear from you in order to bring our neighbourhood’s voice to London City Hall effectively.
Of course, it is also about doing the work at City Hall as well and in my first year I’ve served on Council’s Civic Works and Community and Protective Services Committee, as well as Council’s representative on the Argyle BIA, Library, and Tourism London boards.
I’m looking forward to continuing that work this year and am honoured to have the confidence of my fellow council members in taking on the additional role of Chairperson for the Community and Protective Services Committee for 2020.
There are many Ward level needs and wants to work on as well. We have streets without any sidewalks, while other streets are badly in need of paving repairs. We have parks that need equipment repairs and other locations that need and are waiting for pedestrian crosswalks too. Of course there is also the need to keep working on affordable housing, better snow plowing, public wifi access at city facilities, and getting the green bin program started to name a few of the city wide initiatives I’m working on.
And although I’m frustrated about the delays, I continue to work with our project team at the city to “get it done!” so that 2020 will finally see the opening of our new East Lion’s Community Centre.
It will also be a challenging year as we work on the 2020-2023 Multi-year budget and work to deliver good services while keeping tax increases as reasonable as possible.
I look forward to continuing to work with you, and for you, to make our community an even better place to live, work, and play than it already is.
Wishing you a happy and prosperous New Year!
Naming the EAST LIONS COMMUNITY CENTRE!
In 1951 the newly chartered East London Lions Club purchased a block of land which they cleared for a baseball diamond and park. Continue Reading
Ward 2 Townhall Meeting
Wednesday October 2nd
6:30-8:30pm at the East London Library
Join me and City Staff from the Budget team to discuss the upcoming multiyear budget, get an update on the community centre construction, and discuss the issues important to you.
Ward 2’s Vimy Ridge Park Becomes Official
More than two years after it was opposed by the former Ward 2 Councillor and referred back to city staff to review other options, the Community and Protective Services Committee of London City Council unanimously endorses the motion by new Ward 2 Councillor Shawn Lewis to officially designate Vimy Ridge Park. Continue Reading
UPDATE ON EAST LONDON COMMUNITY CENTRE CONSTRUCTION
Dear Argyle Residents,
I know we’ve all been waiting a long time for the Argyle neighbourhood to get a proper community centre, over 19 years in fact.
It was a privilege to stand with (then) Mayor Brown in the fall of 2017 and officially break ground on the construction site.
And, it has been a disappointment to have the opening repeatedly pushed back from fall of 2018 to spring of 2019, to fall of 2019.
Since being elected I’ve stopped by the work site and connected with the management team on a regular basis. I know they’ve been doing what they can.
Unfortunately, it falls to me to share the bad news that we are still behind schedule.
An Inside Look at Construction of the East London Community Centre
Opening in the fall of 2019, even if it might not appear so from the roadside, construction of the East London Community Centre is moving along well.
Ward 2 Gets $6 Million Infrastructure Renewal Approval
During the election campaign one of the things I promised to do was to make the renewal of the Calgary, Churchill, Edmonton, Manitoba, Winnipeg, Vancouver, Whitney Street area of Ward 2 a priority.
I was sworn in as your Councillor on December 4th. Getting started on this was my first priority and on December 5th I sat down with our City Engineer, Manager of Roads, and Director of Water and Wastewater. As you know, it is not just the roads that are in bad shape, sewer and drainage upgrades are needed as well, Whitney and Calgary Streets shouldn’t flood every time it rains. It was at this meeting that I learned that some of the drainage in the area dates back to the 1920’s and the City of London’s infrastructure renewal for this neighbourhood was not in the plans to be completed until 2029- 2030!!!
I made it clear that wasn’t good enough. Not only had residents been led to belief for years that improvements were “just a couple of years away”, but the city was constructing a $20 million community centre in East Lion’s Park with no plan to upgrade the roads around it for another decade!
The BRT Vote and Better Transit, What Does It All Mean?
After almost 4 years of the Matt Brown led council insisting that their BRT plan absolutely had to be an all or nothing decision, staff clearly indicated to the new council that not only could the BRT plan be broken up into pieces and still be viable, but that other options besides the old BRT plan were available which could qualify for provincial and federal funding.
A list of 19 projects came to council to decide which ones to submit for federal and provincial funding approval. These included; 5 component pieces of the old BRT plan, an intelligent traffic signal management system, bus stop amenities including 60 new bus shelters, the purchase of more buses, a portion of the Adelaide St. underpass design, an intersection improvement project for Wharncliffe & Oxford, Thames Valley Parkway connections, pedestrian connections to the transit network, new sidewalks, and three different cycling proposals along with a couple of others.
What changed from the old BRT plan? Continue Reading
In Debate on BRT: The Argyle View
Discussing in the first video how Argyle residents feel about always being left out when it comes to service and investment from city hall.
In the second video, presenting an amendment to the East London Link rapid transit proposal to include improved service to Argyle, the airport, and employers along Veterans Memorial Parkway to get people to jobs.
Listening to Londoners Frustrations on Snow Removal
From the London Free Press:
Coun. Shawn Lewis spent much of his long weekend listening to Londoners voicing frustrations about city hall’s snow-removal service.
The rookie Ward 2 councillor says he received a flood of complaints from his constituents and residents of other wards after a weekend snowfall blanketed streets and sidewalks that were already covered in ice.
“I was actually hearing from people from wards all across the city,” Lewis said Tuesday.
“Pretty much everything I heard this week from constituents was about how bad the roads were. I had people tweeting me about it, I had Facebook messages, phone calls, emails, the whole gambit.”
Making snow removal one of his priorities, Lewis last month suggested city hall should lower its minimum threshold for sending plows into the streets…
Read the full story at:
Snow-removal complaints piled up over wintry long weekend: Politician