Election Victory
Twenty years ago I moved to Scotland because my husband wanted to return home and raise his children in the homeland of his birth and give them the fantastic upbringing he had been so fortunate to have.
We moved to the East End of Edinburgh in 1997 and our first child Lucy was born in 1998. We moved house several times and finally settled in the Stockbridge area in 2001, where our second daughter Belle was born in 2002.
I had, over a period of years, worked part time in various different fields but was more and more involved in the voluntary sector in my community. I had never really been a political person but the Independence Referendum in 2014 changed that. I watched as my community was torn apart and friends and family stopped speaking to each other. This became a wound that would not heal with various politicians picking away at it and not (in my eyes) really caring about the damage they were causing.
So to help rebuild the community I love, I decided to stand for the Council. I had already joined the Liberal Democrats and I applied to be their candidate in my home Ward of Inverleith.
What an eye opener in the space of a year I went out with a group of volunteers twice a week every week and we knocked on over 10,000 doors. I wrote leaflets and we delivered them to over 24,000 residents.
On the 5th May I was elected, I have never worked so hard in all my life and have never done anything so out of my comfort zone, it was amazing. The bit that really brought it home to me was the day after, my husband and I were walking through our local park when three strangers passed and congratulated me on my election. My husband said to me "What would you have done if you hadn't got in." In truth I had not even thought about it as I had been so focused on the election, I did not think about the result.
I now spend my days on the one hand deciding upon major decisions that will affect the future of the residents of Edinburgh (macro) and meeting individual residents and trying to sort out their immediate needs (micro). Why did I decide to do this? Because I want future generations to feel the same way as my husband and return for
the reasons he did.
After a year of campaigning that included knocking on around 10,000 doors, on the 5th May 2017, I was elected to Edinburgh City Council as the Liberal Democrat Councillor for the Ward of Inverleith. In total 63 Councillors were elected across 17 Wards to represent roughly ½ million residents. To those that might know Edinburgh, my Ward contains such gems as the Botanics, Inverleith Park, Fettes College, Stockbridge, the Modern Art Gallery and part of the Waters of Leith. It also contains areas of deprivation that the majority of tourists would not be aware of.
My day to day responsibilities vary from complaints about the non-emptying removal of waste to issues of homelessness. Every day my inbox presents me with different challenges. As well as the individual contact with residents, I attend a variety of community meetings ranging from resident associations, community councils, school AGM’s, mother and toddler groups, sports day, prize giving and even river clean ups. My residents ask me to attend, I try as hard as I can to do so.
In addition to my Ward duties, I also sit on two Committees, the first and the one that takes up a considerable amount of time is Planning – everyone’s favourite. Edinburgh is home to two UNESCO sites but this is also a rapidly growing city with the population predicted to grow by 50% within the next 30 years. We are also severely restricted in our ability to build by being a coastal city. We need to make sure that what we build is sustainable for the future of our growing city, using new technology and being innovative while not clashing with our existing heritage.
My second Committee is called Communities, Culture and Sport. This Committee covers the vast brief of social care and is extremely challenging. Now we are living longer, we have a growing elderly population with complex health issues and limited resources, the issue of dementia is something we are seeing more and more. In addition, awareness is growing of mental health issues which is fantastic but sadly the system has not caught up with the demand. These are some of the big challenges facing us over the next five years.
I have only been in position for a couple of months but I love my job it is extremely hard work but very rewarding and probably the best thing I have ever done.
OC
Hal Osler (née Fitzgerald) Class of 1987
The Old Cornelian SUMMER 2017 41
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