Coun. Barinder Rasode: "It's no holds barred - let us know exactly what you would like us to talk about."
Photograph by: submitted , for Surrey NOW
The polls are open for residents to vote on topics to discuss at the City of Surrey's inaugural Community Summit, set to be held at SFU Surrey on April 6.
Surreyites can pick from an extensive list of topics - including engaging families, creating vibrant public spaces, sustainability - or submit their own via a form at the bottom of the list. Mayor Dianne Watts, city council and senior management teams representing all departments at city hall will be onhand to engage residents in discussion of the most popular topics.
"It's no holds barred - let us know exactly what you would like us to talk about," said Coun. Barinder Rasode. "I'm really excited about hearing back from the public in terms of some of the ideas that they're going to bring forward."
Other items on the list include welcoming new immigrants, youth perspectives in Surrey and becoming a community leader. One topic that stands out is Surrey Idea Fair/Surrey 2050, which looks at the future of Surrey and asks residents what would they would like to see happen to their city over the next several decades.
"It's about having a broad, long-term vision in terms of what community looks like," said Rasode. "Often when we engage community, it's through a public hearing process on an issue-by-issue basis, but we don't ever go outside of our (Neighbourhood Concept Plan) process to say to people where we project our community to be 10, 20, 30, 40 years in the future.
"Lots of cities have 100-year, long-range planning processes that engage the community, so that's kind of the dialogue that we're looking at in that area."
To fill out the survey, go online and visit surrey.ca/engagement.
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