By Adam Hawkins
Like many local politicians, Elisabeth Arnold says she ran for city council in 1991 because she wanted to help people.
“People really encouraged me to run as a way to express the issues I was concerned about,” she says now.
But Somerset Ward residents weren’t quite ready for her help – she lost by 100 votes. Arnold didn’t take the hint.
“That just sort of whetted my appetite,” she says.
Arnold came back to win in 1994.She pushed for more social services, but found herself in the middle of a decade of cutbacks in a growing, soon to be amalgamated, city of Ottawa.
“The 1990s was a very tough time to be in government,” Arnold says. “There’s a growing demand for services and a lack of willingness to pay for it.”
Despite Arnold’s reputation for locking horns with business interests, she says she looks back fondly on her role as a broker between residential and commercial interests in her ward.
“It’s always been a mixed community,” she says. “And we have to make sure that we can live in that symbiotic way.”
Arnold holds membership in five business improvement associations in her ward.
But, true to character, Arnold cites community improvement efforts as her greatest accomplishments. During her tenure, relationships with community associations have improved, she says.
“I think I’ve been a voice for people that are often marginalized.”
She fought long and hard for the reconstruction of the Plant Pool.
Returning to her earlier work in affordable housing, Arnold contributed to the Rob Kolbus housing complex on McEwen Avenue. The 22-unit building houses low-income youth who might otherwise be homeless. Some of them are single parents.
Arnold worked with the “McNabb Neighbourhood Improvement Bunch” on the Gladstone Improvement Study in 1999.
The group dealt with safety concerns in the McNabb Street area. By narrowing the street, building boulevards and planting trees, the group hoped to make the area safer by making it more pleasant.
“People who have lived in the area for a long time say it has made a big difference in terms of the trees and making it safer to walk,” she says, adding she counts the project as a victory. The area is attracting development for the first time in years.
There are regrets as well.
“You always wish that you could do more,” she says. “I guess some of the hardest things are the people that have been in desperate straits that we couldn’t help.”
Arnold’s interest in sustainable urban development has recently been rekindled. With her schedule opened up, she’s pursuing a career in the field.
“I really want to take the experience I’ve had and focus it on that issue.
“When you’ve been working in politics at the intensity I have been, it’s difficult to contemplate what the future will hold.”