MAKE THE
LITTLE THINGS
HAPPEN.
A dedicated fund to turn community ideas into real improvements, without waiting years to get smaller projects done.
Sometimes it is the little things that make the biggest difference day to day. A street where drivers speed. An intersection that needs a look. A park that could use another bench. A missing bike rack. A crosswalk that is hard to see.
These are not million-dollar projects. They matter to the people who live on those streets. I want to explore a Community Quick Action Fund so Collingwood can answer them faster, with residents helping decide what comes first.
A FUND DESIGNED TO
GET THINGS DONE.
A municipal reserve fund, set up and funded through Council’s own budget process, for smaller community improvements. Instead of every small fix competing with major capital projects, the Town would have money set aside and a clear path to assess and build the ones that qualify.
- 1You say what is wrong
A resident sends in the problem and where it is. No petition, no form nobody can find.
- 2The Town looks at it
Staff check whether it is the Town's to fix, whether it is safe, what it would cost, and whether anybody else needs to be asked.
- 3It gets a place in the queue
Published criteria decide the order: safety first, then how many people it helps, how urgent it is, what it costs, and whether one part of town is getting everything.
- 4The work happens
Routine jobs inside the approved spending limit go ahead without a separate Council vote each time. Anything bigger still goes to Council.
- 5Everybody can see what happened
What was asked, what was decided and why, what it cost against what it was meant to cost, and when it was finished.
This is not about skipping approvals or engineering standards. It is about settling the money and the decision-making before the problems arrive, so the Town is ready to act when they do.
Six kinds of small.
- Traffic calming
Speed humps, flexible bollards and other approved measures on streets where drivers are going too fast.
- Intersection safety
A look at sightlines, stop controls and corner design — with any change still meeting the engineering standards.
- Getting across the road
Crosswalks that are easier to see, curbs that a wheelchair or a stroller can actually get up.
- Parks and public space
A bench, a bin, a bit of shade — small things the people who use a park every day already know are missing.
- Cycling and trails
Bike racks, signs that tell you where the trail goes, small fixes where a trail meets a road.
- Whatever else is small and real
Practical, affordable work that makes a street safer, easier to get around or easier to use.
Nothing on that list has been approved by anyone. And one in particular: a stop sign has to meet the Ontario Traffic Manual criteria, and it is not a device for slowing traffic down. A street where people speed usually needs something else, and saying otherwise to get a vote would be a promise that cannot be kept.
BUILDING ON WORK
ALREADY UNDERWAY.
Collingwood already has ways to report a problem, ask for traffic calming and have a stop sign assessed. The Quick Action Fund would not replace any of that. It would add the one thing those processes do not have: money set aside in advance and a published account of what happened to each request.
- Today, you need a petition
“The petition results must clearly demonstrate that a minimum of 51% of the dwelling units”
Town of Collingwood, traffic calming page. A resident who wants their street looked at starts by knocking on their neighbours' doors.
- The Town's own consultant has proposed dropping it
“Remove the completion of an initial petition completely”
EXP Services, in a January 2026 memo prepared for the Town's Master Mobility and Transportation Plan. It is a consultant's recommendation. Council has not adopted it, and this page does not claim otherwise.
Two Ontario towns already do a version of it.
- $250,000London, Ontario
Its Neighbourhood Decision Making programme puts a quarter of a million dollars a year in front of residents, who submit the ideas and then vote on which ones get built.
“A total of $250,000 is available through the program to enhance neighbourhoods across the city.”
“Individual projects can receive up to $30,000 in funding.”
City of London — 2024 Neighbourhood Decision Making programme
- $300,000Pickering, Ontario
Pickering asked residents which neighbourhood project to fund, almost six hundred people answered, and the winner went into the capital budget — paid for out of casino money rather than the tax levy.
“As a result, $300,000 has been allocated in the 2025 Capital Budget, with funding provided through casino revenues.”
Both of those are participatory budgeting: residents choose, the town builds. What I would want here leans harder on the other half — a fast technical review, the work actually getting done, and a published account of what each request cost and when it finished.
A DEDICATED BUDGET.
A SPECIFIC PURPOSE.
MEASURABLE RESULTS.
I would explore a pilot allocation through the municipal budget, with the amount settled only after reviewing what is already committed, what the reserves can carry and what the town actually needs. As an illustration, a pilot in the range of $100,000 to $150,000 could be assessed. That is a starting point for a conversation, not an approved allocation and not a promise.
The Town already funds some of this work, and a new fund has to sit beside those programmes rather than duplicate them or draw money away from critical infrastructure. A pilot would carry a per-project limit, purchasing rules, a contingency and published financial reporting.
Judge it by what gets finished.
- 10 business daysYou get told it arrived, by a person.
- 30 daysA first assessment, or a straight answer about what still has to be looked into.
- 60 to 90 daysThe straightforward approved jobs are done, where that is practical.
- Every quarterWhat was spent, what was built, what is still waiting.
Proposed, not promised — these are the standards I would argue for, and they would have to be agreed and resourced before they meant anything. The test afterwards is simple enough: jobs finished, money against budget, how long people waited, and whether the people who asked thought it was worth asking.
WHAT WOULD YOU FIX
IN YOUR STREET?
Tell me what you would change. I read these myself. They shape what I push for, and if enough people name the same corner, that tells me something a report cannot.
The fair ones.
Is this a Town programme?
No. It is a proposal. It would need Council's approval, money allocated through the budget, and rules written before a single request could be taken.
Would it put up my taxes?
That has to be worked out through the budget, by looking at what is already committed and what the reserves can carry. Anybody who tells you a new fund costs nothing has not done the arithmetic, and I am not going to tell you that.
Could I ask for a stop sign?
You can raise any intersection you are worried about. Whether a stop sign is the answer is a different question: they have to meet the Ontario Traffic Manual criteria, and a stop sign is not a speed control. Streets where people speed usually need something else.
Would every job need a Council vote?
Not necessarily. Council could set a limit and let staff get on with anything underneath it. Anything needing a by-law, a budget change or a decision Council has kept for itself would still go to Council.
What if my idea gets turned down?
You should be told why, in words, and pointed at whoever can help instead. A request that disappears is the thing people actually complain about.
Who decides which neighbourhoods get things?
Published criteria, not whoever shouts loudest or sends the most emails. A fund that quietly rewards the streets best at lobbying is worse than no fund.
PLANNING MATTERS.
SO DOES FINISHING.
We have to plan for Collingwood's next fifty years. We also have to fix the things people walk past every day. A fund set aside for it, a process anyone can follow and a published record of what got done would move the small things along. Start with a pilot. Measure it. Keep what works and drop what does not.