Rate payers associations get together and talk about stuff

NEWS RELEASE

SAULT STE. MARIE RATEPAYERS ASSOCIATION

****************************** This is to publicly announce that on Saturday August 20th in Sudbury the first meeting held between the members of the Sault Ratepayers Association, Espanola Citizens Group and the Greater Sudbury Taxpayers Association to gauge the emerging and growing movements of citizen volunteer organizations and discuss areas of mutual interest and concern with respect to issues of municipal governance, and ways of bettering municipal affairs.

All three organizations came together to lay a framework for partnering and sharing information between community’s looking towards future growth and shared projects.

Group founders David Poluck of SSMRA Ron Piche, ECG and Dan Melanson, GSTA were very pleased with the discussions and tone of the meeting noting the common points amongst all groups present.

Such as;

- Actively involving citizens in Municipal affairs

- Improving two-way communication and accessibility between Councils and community shareholders.

- Ensuring that the Municipal System is responsible and accountable to all citizens

- Promoting transparency in all aspects of municipal government

- Maintaining city council’s focus on core services

- Maximizing the value of municipal tax spending

- Maintaining municipal tax increases at or below the rate of inflation As a result of this initial meeting it has been agreed that all of the associations will meet again in Espanola this September with an invitation to all communities and interested citizens to attend, to put in place protocols that will promote the efficient transfer of research done by one association or another on any issue of common interest relating to municipal governance.

Having these protocols in place will allow all the associations to work cooperatively as and when an issue or need arises.

Further information;

Sault [email protected]

Espanola [email protected]

Sudbury [email protected]

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