Municipal Government Learning Goals To understand the responsibilities

Municipal Government

Learning Goals To understand the responsibilities of municipal government and the services it provides To be able to identify the challenges faced by our municipal government.

Critical challenge Identify the challenges that our municipal government is facing and make corresponding recommendations to them.

Municipal Responsibilities

Municipal Responsibilities Where does municipal government get funded?

Important concepts Municipal council: the group of people elected to govern on local issues. The head of the council is call the mayor or reeve. Other members are called councillors or aldermen. Ward: a geographic subdivision used as the designation for an elected councillor.

Municipal Responsibilities Mayor of Richmond Hill: Mr. Dave Barrow Leading the regional council Making plans to improve the finance, health, security, cleanliness and comfort of the municipality. Presiding over council meetings and summon special council meetings as necessary.

Members of Richmond Hill Town Council

Important concepts Bylaw: a law or rule passed by a municipal council and applicable only to that municipality Property tax: taxes levied on the value of the property owned by homeowners and business.

Challenges faced by municipal government The power range of municipal government is granted by provincial government. One major argument between the two levels of government is about money and responsibilities: More services to provide Less money to support

Challenges faced by municipal government Increased waste Subsidized public housing Child care Welfare Urban renewal Child poverty Crime homelessness

Your task today Each student is going to write an email to the Mayor of Richmond hill. In this email, you’re going to identify one challenge faced by your community and provide suggestion(s) to this challenge. The challenge MUST: belongs to the range of the services/responsibilities of the municipal government (there is something that the mayor/municipal government can do about it); faced by a certain group of people in your community, i. e. , not your personal/family challenge. The email would be 150 -200 words in total and in the format of a letter. After you finish, please email it to linlinl. wang@mail. utoronto. ca to share with me.