Mayor meets with students

Waterloo mayor Brenda Halloran spoke Tuesday evening at Laurier for a workshop presented by the ACCESSU Laurier campus club.

Halloran gave those present an overview of her life before being elected mayor in 2006 and how students can get involved and make an impact in the community. Halloran, originally a nurse who grew up in Waterloo, fell into the mayoral role after a varied career path and legal battle after her home in Kitchener was found to have been built on contaminated land.

Halloran tried to impress the importance for students to provide her office with feedback and dialogue on their place in the city. “I love to get feedback so I’m always looking for it,” she said. “It is so important that we hear from you and it’s definitely changing.”

The massive student population of Waterloo should be more engaged in community issues, she said: “There’s 40,000 of you and you’re not engaged in our strategic planning.

“A lot of what’s going on in there affects you and we need your voice.”

She emphasized the capacity of the student community to help with community initiatives, volunteering and support services. “You’ve all done something that has brought you to this table,” she said. “For those of us who can, we need to help those who need us.”

She welcomed questions from students and was receptive to their impressions of the city and the initiatives they are involved in and noted after the presentation that two students had already made plans to contact her about contributing to groups that they are involved with on and off campus.