Community activist Dave Meslin's open letter to T.O.'s new councillors

Dave Meslin, the guy behind the Better Ballots initiative and many others aimed at boosting community involvement in the City of Toronto's decision-making, has written an open letter to Toronto's 14 new city councillors on his Facebook page.

Here's part of it: "As you begin your career as a City Councillor, I just wanted to write this short letter to you encouraging you not to pick sides. Don't join a team. Try to build relationships with each of the other 43 Councillors, and with the Mayor. We need new heroes at City Hall. But not partisan heroes. We need consensus heroes. We need Councillors who can pull together alliances and coalitions based on trust, compromise and listening.  Listening to voters, experts, local activists, and each other."

So far, it seems, most of the newbies are doing just that. They have formed a loose-knit alliance among themselves while several, including Josh Matlow writing in the Star, have bemoaned council's left-right dynamic that leads to a winner-take-all result rather than any kind of consensus-building.