Around the horseshoe sits the council. To the right of the Mayor sits the Chief Administrative Officer and to the left the Director of Corporate Affairs. The Directors of various town departments sit across the end of the horseshoe along with a corporate secretary.

Minus the council, the value of the top administration has an annual price tag of close to a million dollars. That is the cost of the professional expertise to operate a municipal corporation the size of Aurora.

What you see on Cable TV is not all you get.

In Ontario, municipalities are little more than agencies for the provincial government. A multiplicity of provincial acts and regulations govern just about every step we take. As well as planning and directing the efficient operation of their departments, staff have the responsibility of guiding council through the maze of government rules and regulations. It should not be an onerous task but it often is.

Protocol at a public meeting prohibits staff from speaking unless invited to do so. They cannot answer questions they have not been asked. If a councillor appears to have misunderstood the legal intricacies of a particular matter, the relevant staff person must by a wink and a nod, signal the C.A.O. then the C.A.O. will - figuratively speaking - tug on the chairperson's sleeve, to signify that intervention is required.

This silly, surreptitious pantomime is necessary because staff can never be seen to be entering the debate and influencing policy decisions. It comes about because all of our meetings are public and therefore formal. There are no opportunities for informal dialogue between staff and the elected representatives. Any time they are together, protocol must be observed.

All political parties at the senior levels of government have the opportunity to caucus. Only municipal politicians are considered to be so venal, they cannot be trusted to discuss anything out of sight and hearing of the public. The irony lies in the minimal members of the public who want to overhear every word uttered.

In the last council, it was not unusual for the four headless horsemen, when they had the majority, to decide they need not abide by silly provincial laws or be guided by staff.

During most of my years in public office, successive councils have recognized the abiding principle - the law is the law - ignore it at your peril.

It's a horse’s ass that thinks he is above the law, election notwithstanding.

Merry Christmas, Aurora!

Best Wishes for a

Happy

Holiday Season!

~Evelyn

Ain't Life Wonderful?

Years ago, I was writing a column in The Aurora Banner and I declared at Christmas that I would like to have my own newspaper.

Ron Wallace, the editor, grumpily demanded to know what I meant by that. I laughed and said I thought it would be great to own a newspaper and make the decisions about what should and should not see the light of day.

I wasn’t a newspaper person but I knew very well that publishing one is complicated business. Some days, the whole world hates you.

Since then, Ron quit the newspaper business and became a book-seller with Rosemary, the love of his life. I lay low for a few years -- though I was always here.

I remember Dave Haskell, the late editor of the Newmarket Era coming back from a conference once and telling how in the future, we would be reading newspapers from a screen. I thought he was talking about a television screen. Didn't think that would catch on.

On another occasion, Jean Baker-Pearce, a former publisher of The Banner returned from a conference and related advice that space should not be wasted on local council business. People were just not interested. I didn't believe that was true either.

So, now Ron is an editor again and he OWNS the newspaper. It seems to me people had been yearning for the little publication that grew and grew.
I am in the process of learning how to publish a blog -- which is different to a newspaper but I do believe, well within my capability.

Who would have thunk it?

We live in times when things we never even imagined a few years ago have the possibility of coming true.

Ain't life wonderful?

Smells like Team Spirit.

It seems like a good time to talk about concepts we heard repeated during the election. They are fresh in our minds and there never was enough time in any of the venues to debate ideas. Even the mayoralty candidates, who had more time than all others put together, didn't deal much with ideas. Tim Jones did but he had no takers.

The value of team spirit and co-operation was floated as a virtuous aspiration. I don't buy that.

Well, think about it.

Consider the structure of an NHL team: captain, coach, players, owners, game officials and fans. The goal--pardon the pun, is to win and create wealth for everyone connected with the team. One cannot live in Canada without having an awareness for what it takes to win in hockey.

Discipline is huge. Every player knowing and doing what he does best. Knowing what his opposite number does best. Doing his best to foil the other fellow's best. Everyone doing their best to get the puck into the other team's net pow pow pow! The optimum best in this context does not equate with nice, polite, kind, fair or scrupulous adherence to the rules.

What? Are you kidding me?

Every player knows he is only as good as his last game. Any time fan/coach/owner satisfaction falls, there is the chance of a trade....and off he flies into netherland.

Now we have established similarities between a blood sport and politics. It is clear they have little to do with any concept of virtue as espoused by candidates touting the value of "team spirit" without having a full understanding of how it plays in the political arena.

Unlike hockey, politics is a game without any written rules.

There are no manuals for newly elected councillors. Skill is acquired through practice on the ice. Principles are not necessarily shared. Even procedural rules are not always observed. When the campaign ends, the work of council is supposed to begin. It doesn't always. Sometimes the campaign never ends and the town's business is completely subjugated .

The common principle the community is entitled to expect is that every member intends to do what each believes to be in the community's best interest. That does not imply a shared vision .

Therein lies the kernel of democracy. The point of an election. The difference between a team and a council.

When every councillor's views have been expressed and hopefully heard respectfully when each debate ends when the vote is taken, the only remaining criteria is that the majority rules.

There is no team, no captain, no coach, no owners, no referees, no penalties, no game forfeits.

There are no winners when the game is played in bad faith.

Politics are frequently cloaked in layers of unctuous righteousness. But "All the perfumes of Arabia" are not enough to make it smell like team spirit.

Highest and Best Use of a Councillor's Time....

The inaugural is over. We have taken our Oath of Office. We are now entitled to take our seats at the council table. Months of campaigning, years in some cases, have taken place. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent getting the messages out. Several questionable questionnaires were circulated. Four all-candidate events brought out huge numbers of voters to hear and see candidates perform under pressure.

The Town expects the election to cost $140 thousand dollars of public funds. Twenty-three candidates vied for nine seats. I was not out there wearing out shoes and knocking my knuckles to the bone on thousands of doors but when people say they did that - I believe them. It is a heroic effort and everyone who participated deserves the appreciation of the entire community. Sticking your head up above the crowd and inviting people to take shots takes no small amount of courage.

When the chosen nine take their seats at the council table, I think that’s a big deal. I think it’s a serious responsibility to be making decisions for the entire community. I think accountability for votes cast during a term of office is a big deal. What other measure, in a civilized and intelligent society, should a voter have to determine where to place a vote in a future election?

That is why I do not believe the decision-making process should be spread out to include a hundred other citizens who will serve on advisory committees. They have not faced the voters. They have not spent personal resources, physical and financial. They have not spent months of their lives putting ideas forward and risking rejection in a very public arena. They will not be held accountable for the votes they cast in committee.

The most important function of a member of a councillor is to provide oversight to the Town’s administration. Councillors need the opportunity to gain an understanding of how a town department functions and the various principles underlying advice to Council.

The only way to get that level of competence is through the work of a standing committee. That’s where time can be spent between a department head and the elected representative, asking and answering every question that comes to mind. The job is part-time. If the taxpayers’ interest is going to be properly served, the highest and best use should be made of council’s time.

Sitting around a table with twice as many non-elected citizens with twice as many votes who are looking at only one aspect of town service is not my idea of the highest and best use of a councillor‘s time. It is undoubtedly a virtuous concept. It is not my idea of good management practice.

The Value of Offsite Council Meetings

Weekends are precious to most families. Staying in a hotel and sleeping in a bed that is not my own; spending time from eight in the morning until ten at night talking shop; with breaks only for meals, this is not my idea of a fun weekend, even if the Town is paying for it.

I liked it even less when John West had us driving north to a frozen wilderness to get the cheapest rate possible. I swore I would never do that again.

At the beginning of the last term, the new council went to the Nottawasaga Inn. It was a reasonable drive. Staff had negotiated a package for meals and accommodation. Speakers had been engaged. A considerable amount of work had already been done. All that remained was for council members to take advantage of the opportunity. Three did not.

We had two presentations from outside experts: one on the law focused on legal pitfalls for municipal councillors and how to steer clear of them. The second presentation was on shifts in population, both world-wide and domestically, changes in provincial planning policies and how they impacted on our own development. The rest of the program consisted of reports on the current status and background of Town projects that were underway at the time.

It was a weighty program and the people who attended were wiser for it. It is a useful and normal practice to do an offsite orientation. Well worth the investment. Whether we do it again this term remains to be seen.