secretlyloaded
There are also concerns about the city’s access to water. The drought is also out of the headlines at the moment but San Diego gets almost all of its water from other water districts. The desalinization plant in Carlsbad is producing less water than anticipated, but the larger structural issue is this: desalination requires a lot of energy, and the only reason it’s viable is because natural gas is cheap. Natural gas is only cheap because of fracking, which destroys groundwater. So I don’t see this as a sustainable solution. 

BmofeR
Adequate public drain maintenance. When it rains, although infrequent, it causes a ridiculous amount of flooding for the small volumes of water that comes down. Many community drain systems are not well maintained or up to code, and many are blocked/non-functioning. On top of that, the drains that are functioning go directly into the ocean, unfiltered and near public beaches, causing elevated bacterial levels for the subsequent days/weeks following. It’s a rule in the local diving community to not go into the ocean at least 48 hours after any rain, even light rain, for protection from elevated bacterial levels and general yuck pouring into the ocean from the local streets.

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Columbus OH – Marilyn
Ohio State Extension 
The topic area in which you’ve made a request is not yet fully staffed by eXtension experts and therefore we cannot provide you with a timely answer.

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Danielle Riley
Oakland  – Tent Cities 

I just can’t believe none of the cities are dealing with homeless as bad as Oakland. One of the encampments caused a fire next to my office

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Frances Waterman – Montreal
Do black lives matter in Montreal?

Whenever an incident involving anti-black discrimination occurred in Montreal a couple of decades ago, a reporter had at least a dozen active black community organizations to call upon for comment.

In fact I’m referring to the 90’s! Several of those organizations would have already called the newsroom to offer a comment, or announced a press conference or a rally.

  There was the black coalition of Quebec, The Jamaican association, la maison d’Haïti, The Federation of organizations of Trinidad and Tobago of Quebec, the congress of black women, the association of black Business person’s and professionals, The Quebec board of Black Educators and of course many more.

 Although these organizations. Still exist at least on paper, they are less vocal.  

 While the black lives matter expands south of the border and even in Toronto, Montreal’s black community is silent at least as traditional activism goes.

 But there were gains made thanks to that wave of activism.  Groups like the Quebec Board of Black Educators were able to get some black teachers hired.  Longtime black community leaders like Noel Alexander and Dan Phillip managed to draw attention to problems with policing and the glaring lack of black community members in politics.  
 
 Language is another issue that has worked against black activism young black Anglos, forcing a double dose of discrimination tended to leave for greener pastures.

 I have noticed there is more insistence on obeying the laws and fitting in among the different black communities. I myself am guilty of this.

 Activism is not a priority for the Jeune chambre de commerce haïtienne(JCCH). Helping young people integrate and find economic success in Quebec can achieve some of the goals previous

generations of activists strove to attain.

Montreal – Nadine Jordan
“One of challenges the city of Montreal faces is the First Nations peoples – disproportionately living in poverty, subject to higher rates of crime and discrimination. We need to be trying harder to help address their issues. Recently Canada is going to pay out millions in indigenous lawsuit over forced adoptions. For decades, Canadian social workers forcibly separated indigenous children from their families, putting them up for adoption by nonnative families in Canada and around the world.

This happening and still happening in Canada is a heart breaker for me. It is also one of their best kept secrets because Canada does not want to be seen as a social oppressor. Being of African decent, I have lived in Montreal for a good part of my life. I never had issues with my caramel skin. But recently I did some research and found that although the borders were open for runaway slaves, the treatment was just a little bit better than in the united states. However, Canada made laws for equality early on to hide their poor treatment of Africans. The First Nations peoples, however, were not offered such and dealt with racism, even up to today.

Canada is trying to make atonement to its Native people by apologizing for its cultural genocide and abuse to the First Nation people. The winning of the lawsuit that will be distributed to living relatives affected by the unlawful adoptions is a first step to redeeming themselves, but they still have a long way to go.”

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Keith Mon Baltimore
What happened to Baltimore? We have the same problem as many other large metropolitan areas. Urban decay is a big problem, but is only an underlying symptom of the deeper issues.

I keep hearing our elected politicians seeking office in Baltimore all talk and make promises of the great changes that they are going to make!

When will we see these changes?

Our city has a horrible reputation for drugs and violence….of notable proportions.

Oklahoma City  Rebecca Lemke
Oklahoma City has some gang activity. It worries me a bit, especially in some neighborhoods.

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Detroit – chollykins
Education. The vast majority of Detroit children are vastly underserved. They are not receiving even close to the rigor or standard of education as their suburban counterparts.

Trees Advocate – Houston
Lack of equal public school funding. Texas and A&M have higher budget allotments than UH despite having their own trusts that far outstrip ours and our continuing relevance. It keeps on the back foot, both in sports and expanding new programs. Our infrastructure (walkways, old dorms) can’t improve while sustaining both NCAA sports and rigorous programs that lead research.

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Frederick Brown – Atlanta
Infrastructure, traffic is some of the worst in the country!

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Phoenix 2agnosis
Climate change and water rights

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Wichita, Michele Ryan
Job security. Let me explain. Wichita is the Air Capital of the world. Home to Beech aircraft, Bombardier, Spirit and Cessna. When American corporations and particularly military contracts – when those contracts are awarded to companies outside of the US, Wichita is crippled financially by massive layoffs, pay cuts and unemployment from these major Wichita employers. All of the workers suffer the consequences. From the engineers that design the plane to the logicians that coordinate everything, down to the factory workers that assemble the aircraft. The aircraft industry is so vital to the Wichita economy. When aircraft building contracts are sent overseas Wichita faces financial crisis.

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Michael John Mele, Tampa
My city doesn’t know who it is, it tries so hard to be every other city instead of just trying to find its own identity. My city wants to pretend that it’s all grown up, but unfortunately it’s still in the infant stages of life and still trying to discover its own who it really is.

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