Family Politics

Greetings. I thought I would take off a few nights from the blogosphere.

As many of you know, I have two small children. Elsa is almost 4 and Henry is almost 1. Both preschoolers and both enrolled in the excellent YMCA program. We are lucky to have gotten into such a wonderful community resource. It is very, very difficult to serve in a capacity such as City Council with small children. For example, two City Councilors with preschoolers are both leaving (Ian Carleton and Carmen George). In fact, Ian even cited his family as one of the reasons that he was leaving. It is indeed a difficult dance, especially in situations where families are already stretched to the max because of time commitments. For example today I was up at 5:30 with Henry, worked a full day, got home about 5:30, made and ate dinner with the family, went out and knocked on doors for a couple of hours (OK for those of you who are paying attention, it has NOT gotten any warmer, which may be a good thing). Got home about 8:15, put Elsa to bed, made the kids lunches, e-mailed and blogged. Tomorrow will be more of the same.

I believe that the Council should be representative of the entire City and reflect that diversity and make up. I think I can help to maintain that diversity that will be lost with the departure of Ian and Carmen. Not only is my family a busy one. We are a working class family, a professional working class family, but a working class family nevertheless. We have always qualified for the property tax prebate and sometimes it is a real struggle just to make ends meet. Of course I realize that at the same time we are quite fortunate to have what we have. But we are practically full time working parents (Jen works 4 days a week) and it is, as many of you know, really tough to find time for all the things that we want to do and offer to our children.

In addition, to offering the unique perspective of an active father of two little ones, I think that I also bring to the table at least one other unique asset, the ability to ask hard questions and protect the people of the community through vigorous advocacy. This is not an easy task and may notalways be a pleasant one. However it is a necessary task and I feel comfortable in representing that I will be able to draw on a decade of experience if elected.

Hope to see you soon.

Best,
Ed