Letter: City's Downtown Meeting Was Engagement Theatre That Avoided Hard Questions, Missed Real Solutions
A July 28 closed-door meeting on downtown safety failed to address urgent issues like open drug use and enforcement, writes Owen Sound resident Sasha Fernando.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Dear Editor,
The July 28 “Downtown Safety” meeting at the Harmony Centre — convened by the City of Owen Sound at the Police Services Board’s request — was a textbook example of how to stage the appearance of public engagement while sidestepping the urgent realities at hand.
A Meeting Built on Vague Prompts and Pre-Determined Comfort
The City and facilitator Joel Pennington used a four-step “respect, connect, reflect, direct” model, leading with questions such as “What’s going well downtown?” and “How do the challenges we face as a community impact you?”
These are not the questions you ask when your downtown is facing an entrenched homelessness, drug, and mental health crisis — they are the questions you use when you don’t want to address specifics.
The results were predictable: no enforcement timelines, no commitments to infrastructure improvements, and no consensus on actions beyond repeating already well-known needs like a men’s shelter and 24/7 public washrooms. These have been discussed to exhaustion in previous meetings, with zero movement toward implementation.
This is engagement theatre — a poorly worded survey that funnels discussion toward safe, non-controversial “collaboration” narratives, while avoiding the uncomfortable but necessary conversations about enforcement, accountability, and measurable outcomes.
Closed Doors and a Narrow Audience
This was an invitation-only event with restricted media access under terms the Owen Sound Current rightly rejected. By limiting attendance to select business owners, agencies, and officials, the City excluded the broader public — especially residents who live with the daily consequences of unsafe downtown conditions.
Transparency and trust cannot be built when participation is so tightly controlled.
No Structured Data, No Accountability
Four scribes recorded the discussions, but no structured survey, no demographic mapping of responses, and no measurable priorities were gathered. Without this, feedback remains anecdotal and cannot be tracked against future outcomes.
A report to Council in September is promised, but there is no public commitment to act on any recommendations or to return to participants with a concrete action plan and timeline.
Why This Matters
The Police Services Board’s original April request was to “convene a meeting with the River District Board, the Chamber of Commerce, and all downtown business owners to discuss current business conditions” and whether the Nuisance Bylaw could be enforced more actively.
That focus has now been diluted into broad community “visioning,” conveniently bypassing the pressing enforcement and safety issues that initiated the discussion in the first place.
On Deb Haswell’s and Mary Anne Alton’s Comments
Mary Anne Alton framed the meeting as a success, claiming “the goal was met” because participants left “desiring more dialogue.” This is precisely the problem. Dialogue without direction is not progress — it’s stalling.
In a crisis, the benchmark for success is not whether people want more meetings, but whether concrete commitments and timelines emerge.
Former mayor Deb Haswell praised Owen Sound Police Services for recognizing safety as a community issue and the City for holding the forum, yet she acknowledged from conversations with attendees that it “lacked focus on the issue of open drug use, safety… and enforcement plans.”
That contradiction speaks volumes: praising the effort while admitting the core issues were sidestepped only reinforces how low the bar has been set for leadership.
Editor’s Note: You can see the aforementioned comments in their entirety on this article. A previous version of this letter mistakely attributed Haswell’s comment to Alton, and Alton’s to Haswell. That error in attribution has been corrected.
The Real Cost of Missed Leadership
While the City congratulates itself for “hearing from the people in the room,” small businesses continue to absorb the reputational and economic fallout of an unsafe downtown. Residents and visitors navigate spaces where drug use is openly visible, lighting is inadequate, and property standards go unenforced.
Organizations like Safe ‘n Sound — which receive substantial public funds — operate without the transparent governance and municipal oversight that could ensure accountability.
What Should Have Happened
A credible meeting would have:
Defined a clear, public objective: e.g., “Identify and commit to three safety measures to implement within six months.”
Used targeted, context-specific prompts about enforcement priorities, infrastructure needs, and governance accountability.
Deployed structured surveys to capture measurable input from every attendee, mapped against demographics to understand who is being heard.
Included diverse voices beyond the pre-selected list, ensuring residents, marginalized groups, and those with lived experience could participate.
Concluded with agreed timelines, assigned responsibilities, and a public reporting mechanism.
Instead, Owen Sound got a closed-door conversation that produced no deadlines, no ownership, and no plan. In the face of a safety crisis, this is not engagement — it’s deflection.
Sincerely,
Sasha Fernando
Owen Sound
Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.
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Sasha Fernando’s comments cut through the BS and echo ongoing frustrations with Owen Sound’s clumsy efforts at public engagement. As he so clearly describes, it needs to be done well, because, done badly, it corrodes the public's trust in City Hall and in each other.
Fernando points out – a lack of ideas is never the problem. The Owen Sound Future Vision 2050 Project came up with the same ideas, after asking the same questions about safety and downtown revitalization. Over 18 months, more 1000 residents answered the Vision survey and hundreds more attended in-person meetings. In June, the promised strategic plan Vision that residents are waiting for, and that senior staff presented to council, was again delayed by a unanimous vote of council. The $90K plan and its $100K 2025-2026 budget for implementing community-led actions was not mentioned by either Councillor Merton or the facilitators of the recent stakeholders meeting.
By not approving and publishing the plan and connecting the dots back to residents, we lose the social cohesion and leadership needed for implementing ideas.
Demonstrating to our community that our feedback was heard and tied to an action plan shows us the value and reward of participating in public processes.
If city council wants public trust, stop asking what we think while ignoring what we’ve said. Over and over and over again. We’ve told you. We made a plan. A plan you and every member of the council voted not to approve.
Councillor Merton, if building trust is the foundation for “a kind, compassionate, inclusive and vibrant community”, the city council needs to start getting its own house in order, building a culture for authentic public engagement before gaining the public confidence sorely needed for community-wide change.
Hi Sasha,
I don't think we've met, but nice to e-meet you. My contact details and the full agenda for the meeting were sent out in advance to all participants for questions/comments/concerns/feedback. Perhaps you didn't get the communication? Anyway, that offer still stands if you'd like to connect.
Joel