Kamel Elkadri

Healthy Dearborn is a vibrant community coalition that has partnered with the City of Dearborn since 2015 to create a culture of health in Dearborn by working to reduce health disparities through active living and healthy eating strategies. For more on Healthy Dearborn, please visit our website: https://www.healthydearborn.org/. How do you see your Mayoral administration or Dearborn’s City Council working with Healthy Dearborn? And what specific ideas do you have for implementing Healthy Dearborn initiatives? *

If I elected to city council I would work with Healthy Dearborn, this is one of my reasons for running, to keep Dearborn safe, clean and healthy. I would first push for more traffic patrol to reduce speeding and aggressive driving. This would then create a safer city for walking and riding bikes. I currently ride my bike in the community with my family and do not feel safe at all, because of this I do not let one of my daughters ride her bike I make her sit in my wagon and I pull her. I would also like to work with local restaurants to promote healthier cooking and I know this already happens however not just create healthier options but education for the young generation, have healthy cooking sessions, live and over zoom. Creating a healthy Dearborn with partnership of Dearborn Schools to educate the younger generation on safe driving, the risks of smoking and vaping, and the benefits of making healthier food and drink choices.

What do you see as Dearborn’s biggest health challenges and Dearborn’s biggest health assets? How can we best leverage our assets to address our challenges? *

I think the challenge is making Dearborn more walkable, as I stated earlier Dearborn is not safe to walk or bike with the current traffic situations. The assets is that we are a community that comes together and no matter the cause there is great collaboration, and we can use this to push a healthier lifestyle. I can see the downtown district on Michigan Ave helping promote a healthier Dearborn, WestBorn Market can have live demo cooking of their products by local chefs cooking healthy meals, The Henry Ford creating some sort of "Walk the Village" event, Or "Walk Dearborn".

Do you believe that "Health in all Policies," which is the use of health assessment tools to guide decisions on major civic projects and policy decisions, should be implemented in Dearborn? Please explain why, either way. *

Yes, this should be implemented. All decisions, policies and ordinances that are made should have the health of their citizens in mind. I think that some decisions that have been made have not had the total health of the citizens in mind. The social, physical and economic environments are not completely looked at when these ordinances, or decisions are made.

Dearborn’s Multimodal Transportation Plan (MMTP) (https://walkbike.info/dearborn/) was developed with significant community involvement, including Healthy Dearborn, and was adopted by the Dearborn City Council on October 6, 2020. How do you see the implementation of the MMTP fitting into your community health priorities as City Council Member? *

I see this fitting perfect with my health priorities as a city council member. It is exactly what I have in mind. When I walked everyday to and from school beginning elementary to middle and high school to even my job over at Henry Ford Village since I was 18 years old even though I did have a car. I just feel that currently citizens cannot do this, and this should be a priority.