New Saint John city councilor
honours and serves God and poor
By Ana Watts
Donnie Snook lives to honour, serve and love God. “At least that’s what I strive to do,” says the popular director of the Saint John Inner City Youth Ministry and new member of Saint John Common Council. “Out of that devotion and service to God comes a love for neighbours – for others – as Jesus says in the first and second commandments. I seek to do that, I strive to do that, and sometimes I am successful. I hope this new opportunity on council will help me be a servant leader in the fashion of Jesus.”
In 2004 Donnie ran unsuccessfully for council. His goal was to raise neighbourhood issues especially related to children, youth and poverty. “I didn’t win, but I did spotlight the issues and met a lot of people.” He was invited to sit on committees and boards like PRO Kids, which promotes positive recreational activities like music lessons and sports, as well as Vibrant Communities, an anti-poverty leadership round table with representatives from government, business and non-profit sectors. It exists to implement poverty reduction strategies in the Saint John area. These appointments made his voice stronger
“It’s one thing to work every day in a high level of poverty neighbourhood, but on these committees I had an opportunity to give input and had an even greater opportunity to learn – I worked with experts who had actually achieved things around poverty reduction.”
The experience reinforced his opinion that council needed more people connected at the neighbourhood level to work on issues like affordable housing, social development and social issues. The city’s change to ward representation also worked to help him focus his energies on the poorer communities he serves. So he ran again in the May election on a platform calling for more youth programming, community policing, poverty reduction, open and transparent government, and development that creates vibrant and inclusive communities. He also wants to see more public consultation on the budget and citizen priorities. I got the most votes of all the candidates in his ward, which is represented by two councilors.
His ward three is the most diverse in the city. It includes some poor neighbourhoods in the east end, the south end peninsula, the north end, and the lower west side. It also includes the areas of greatest potential, with waterfront development in the south end, all of the uptown’s prosperous retail and business properties as well as Harbour Station, and the north of Union development including a new justice complex.
One of his first acts on council was to introduce safer communities and neighbourhoods legislation, or SCAN. It gives the police the actual authority to evict people involved in the illegal activity and landlords can be held accountable for renting to people who choose to sell drugs, run prostitution rings or any illegal activity that disrupts a neighbourhood. It requires the city to set up a special investigations unit to receive, investigate and confirm confidential complaints.
Donnie’s years in the South End showed him what crime can do to a neighbourhood and he has seen the police unable to effectively deal with the problem. He recognizes the concerns over civil rights the legislation raises, but he also knows the effect such legislation has on criminal activity in other communities. The legislation stipulates the courts must hear the cases quickly. In Nova Scotia, where the legislation is in place, the average time is about two weeks. Gradually criminals operating in densely populated areas realize their activities are attracting the attention of the community and their presence is no longer tolerated. In its first year of operation there were 197 complaints, 174 of them drug related; there were 41 eviction notices and three cases are before the courts.
“I don’t have all the answers,” Donnie admits. The legislation may not be a cure all, but it will have an affect criminal activity. "Right now it seems like nothing can be done about it."
Donnie’s second act on council paved the way for the city to give grants to Habitat for Humanity and other social housing groups to cover the costs of their building permits as well as water and sewer hook-up charges.
The Saint John Inner City Youth Ministry started as the Chicken Noodle Club, a hot lunch ministry for school children at St. James Church in the South End. That ministry survived the closure of the church and now operates out of the St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church next door. The lunch ministry expanded over the years and is now present in all of the city’s four wards and boasts partnerships with other churches and businesses, but remains strongest in the south end.
Since the demise of St. James, the Inner City Youth Ministry operates from an office at Trinity Church in uptown Saint John. “Well, we keep our files there,” says Donnie, “but our mode of operation now is cell phone and car.” In winter he keeps boxes full of mittens in the trunk and drives around the schools at recess and lunchtime. Children with no mittens recognize his car, he pops his trunk, and they get their mittens and go back to their games with warm hands.
The myriad Inner City Youth Ministry programs dwell in several buildings throughout the city and it is getting more and more difficult to do mission work in the south end. When schools and churches amalgamate they come together in the better buildings, which are seldom in the poorer areas of town where much of the mission work resides.
“I think we are eventually going to lose St. John the Baptist too. It’s not until these buildings and institutions are gone that you realize how much important mission work is done in them,” says Donnie.
On Common Council, however, he may get early warning of such events and perhaps be able to influence some decisions in favour of the people and neighbourhoods in greatest need.
