Off to City Hall...

...to advocate for extra municipal funding for mental health support programmes this morning. I've printed out three drafts of my "deputation" - city hall slang for a speech expected to last no more than five minutes - and am not sure that I'm properly set up for this.

I am, of course, terrified of being reinfected by COVID-19 by way of public transit. Not that I have any realistic alternatives to that to resort to right now for various reasons and excuses.

I haven't visited the downtown core of Ottawa-Gatineau in over a year. There have surely been additional changes to the neighbourhood that I don't know to expect.

Wildlife: Insect Notes III

If memory serves...I've spotted examples of these over this past year:

- butterflies
- beetles
- ants
- crickets
- centipedes
- roaches (strictly outdoors, I hope)
- house flies
- mosquitoes
- grasshoppers
- mites

Not a complete list by any means.

City Hall: After-Action Report

Well, it wasn't a deputation. That's apparently not until next month, which is going to...not complicate at least one other appointment at the end of November. I am going to have to deal with lost income for however long I have to be ready to deliver it on that day, I think.

What did happen was further training, as well as face time directly with three city councillors. Leiper, Troster and Devine. Also, contact with some of the staffers of other members of city council.

Focus is still on mental health, poverty reduction and housing, because the city budget-building for 2024 is underway, and the staff's under direction to keep the rate increase to 2.5 %.

What I could have felt better about? More than a half-dozen of the 50 attendees masking up, for one. Seeing working air purifiers in the room for another. Neither of those things happened, though, so...