THUNDER BAY — The city’s first Thunder Bay Talks event saw over 70 people come out to the West Thunder Community Centre.
The informal event allowed residents to meet with city staff from nearly every department, ask them questions, share ideas, and enjoy a hot dog.
“Engagement is really important. We wanna know and connect with the community. We wanna know what matters to the community, what types of questions do you have for us,” Cynthia Olsen, director of strategy and engagement, told Newswatch.
Each department set up a booth around the community centre, where residents could easily approach and chat with a staff member and get information on city services.
Olsen said each department will take the feedback from the public to discuss internally.
“We'll also have discussions as part of our senior leadership. Any other information that we can collate and share back to the community like 'this is what we heard from you'. And are there actions that we can take from the suggestions or the input that we received from the community? Then we'll share that back with them as well,” she said.
Olsen said the city is planning to host the causal event twice a year.
“We'll assess from there like do we wanna do it more, do we wanna do it less but I think, obviously, the turnout is really great and hearing from people that they were excited to come out and meet us,” she said.
The next Thunder Bay Talks event will be scheduled for the fall.
