Toronto Ombudsman Fiona Crean is coming to Scarborough next week - to find out from residents what's working, and what could be working better, at the City of Toronto.
The visit, which will be happening Tuesday, Oct. 20, at the Scarborough Civic Centre from 7-9 p.m., marks the first time that Toronto's new ombudsman has met with residents beyond the downtown confines of Toronto City Hall.She's vowing it won't be the last. By the end of the year, Crean will have held four meetings in the four corners of Toronto to bring the brand new office directly to Torontonians."I've been on the job for six months now and I have said from the outset that the hallmark of this office is accessibility," said Crean. "Well, the single mom working in Rexdale is unlikely to be able to get down to city hall. My commitment is eventually I intend to visit all areas of the city and we're starting in Scarborough under the hospices of councillors Glenn de Baeremaeker and Michael Thompson."The meeting will be sort of a get-to-know-each-other session with Scarborough residents. Crean is hoping that she'll be able to explain the purpose of her office - which was established by legislation as an independent investigative body for all manner of problems that might arise in the city's bureaucracy.Next week, Crean will issue a six month report, which will indicate details about what the office has accomplished in its first six months. Crean wouldn't be specific about those investigations in advance, but she said that a common theme was issues surrounding customer service."One of the common themes is customer service, but it ranges all over the map," she said. "That's no big surprise - we're the country's sixth largest government. So the issues range from my garbage bin was broken, to allegations about proper contract letting, and everything in between."She said she's hoping that residents who come out to the meeting in Scarborough will be able to fill her in on what they see as the overriding issues when it comes to the city."There's several goals about this and one of them is I am working on a three-year strategic plan - I want to check out with communities in Scarborough what I am hearing, and whether those are problems that those communities have as well. So in Scaroborough I am going to say, 'customer services is a repeat issue wherever I go - is that an issue for you? What's bugging you, what's worrying you in Scarborough?"But Crean also doesn't want to get anyone's hopes up, that every complaint sent to her office will be investigated on its own. "We are a seven-person office with a $1.2 million budget and there are 2.4 million people in Toronto. So I do indeed have to pick and choose in the sense of prioritizing."With that said, she said eventually she hopes to have meetings such as this one in every ward in Toronto."It's going to take me a couple of years to get there, though," she said.