{"id":3087,"date":"2012-12-11T16:23:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T21:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=3087"},"modified":"2012-12-13T10:21:31","modified_gmt":"2012-12-13T15:21:31","slug":"conspiracies-secret-meetings-and-backroom-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/conspiracies-secret-meetings-and-backroom-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"Conspiracies, Secret Meetings and Backroom Deals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"ConspiracyAs the year comes to a close, I think it’s about time I ‘fessed up about the conspiracies, secret meetings, backroom deals, hidden commissions and other underhanded dealings council has had this term.<\/p>\n

There haven’t been any.<\/em><\/p>\n

Sorry about that. I know how many people have built little, angry\u00a0sand castles out of the notion we have been secretly plotting in backrooms and handing out commission cheques like drunken pirates on a shore leave, but the simple truth is that we haven’t<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I know, I know, that ruins the whole conspiracy theory thing\u00a0for some folks. I might as well have said UFO abductions aren’t real or that homeopathy isn’t medicine.<\/p>\n

I can only offer a glimmer of hope that we still have two years left to go, so there’s still a chance we might fail to live up to our oath of office in future. A slim chance, mind you, but those odds\u00a0don’t stop people from buying lottery tickets.<\/p>\n

Take the terminals, for example. It’s a lot more fun to imagine nefarious deals struck in the dark corners of the silos (Who handed them the keys? Who took their dollar? Whose idea was this? Dorothy, I’ve got your dog….<\/em>) than to believe we met in camera to deal with the rather mundane but lengthy process of due diligence, replete with sleep-inducing\u00a0discussions over convoluted contracts, terms, liability and finances. It takes the glow off\u00a0everything when our dark secret involves advice from the town’s real estate brokers and legal opinions about selling an old, creaky industrial building (and all the liability and complexity that a\u00a0brownfield-cum-heritage site on the waterfront\u00a0entails).<\/p>\n

Could some of that have been discussed\u00a0in the open? Perhaps a little. But it’s not so easy to extract those\u00a0fragments of property matters from the rest, and sometimes it’s hard to tell until after a discussion whether all of it needed to be in camera. If I failed to stop the\u00a0meeting so we could rise to public session to debate, say, the condition of the roof, and then retreat back in camera to continue with the rest, I apologize. It wasn’t done to hide anything, just that the discussion moved quickly and most issues\u00a0were\u00a0properly dealt with in camera.<\/p>\n

I understand that from the outside, it may look like we’re doing the double-double-toil-and-trouble routine in the “cone of silence” but all we were doing is just treading the slow path of bureaucracy and legality, under the watchful eyes of staff (who wield a rather mean Municipal Act when we stray). We call it “due diligence.”<\/p>\n

It must disappoint a few readers that this council has had a LOT fewer closed-door meetings than last council, where it seemed sometimes, we were closeted for hours at a time, every Monday. The\u00a0prosaic but dull\u00a0truth is that\u00a0as the municipal government, we\u00a0have issues we need<\/em> to discuss in camera and the Municipal Act clearly lays them out. Just read the Act.<\/p>\n

\"ConspiracyAre their malevolent lobbyists<\/a>\u00a0scurrying around in the\u00a0shadows, twisting our arms to broker their deals, perhaps\u00a0mesmerizing us with under-the-table gifts so we vote a certain way? Another apology. I know that some of you really want to believe that, but not one councillor I have spoken to was approached\u00a0a single time or lobbied over any decision we’ve made at the table. As for gifts, I have yet to be bought a coffee by a lobbyist, let alone a yacht or a Mediterranean cruise.<\/p>\n

We’re anachronisms, it seems, by today’s political standards: tediously honest and boringly dedicated.<\/p>\n

And the town didn’t cut anyone a cheque for those services or sales. No commission cheques. That must burst a few bubbles, and not the ice rink-swimming pool kind. I know you won’t rest easy until you can lift every rock and uncover something untoward, but so far\u00a0that search has\u00a0proven as barren of life as the soils of Mars. Just because it never happened\u00a0shouldn’t stop anyone from filing a Freedom of Information request, if you need the reassurance. Again.<\/p>\n

Backroom deals? You mean the “barbeque politics<\/a>” where we do the nudge-nudge-wink-wink over a beer and a slap on the back? Haven’t been any that I’ve been invited to. I’ve had coffee a few mornings with one or two councillors, and we’ve exchanged personal thoughts on agenda items and municipal matters, but\u00a0two or even three\u00a0 councillors\u00a0meeting at public places\u00a0is a pretty thin\u00a0context for a conspiracy, let alone a coup. We’re having all of our “awkward discussions” in public, at the table, I’m afraid, not in cliques.<\/p>\n

Yes, we’ve stumbled here and there over procedural issues and we’re not always\u00a0good at communicating with the public. We’re so eager to get things done, and move on, that we might appear hasty to some people. Overall, those are minor faults; they don’t exactly\u00a0point to a cabal of malfeasant councillors scheming and plotting for personal gain. By and large this is a good, effective,\u00a0council.<\/p>\n

For those of you who like to dabble in conspiracy theories, I’m afraid this council is a disappointment. You won’t get much satisfaction from us this term. But take heart: all is not lost, You still have the Mayan Apocalypse to look forward to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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As the year comes to a close, I think it’s about time I ‘fessed up about the conspiracies, secret meetings, backroom deals, hidden commissions and other underhanded dealings council has had this term. There haven’t been any. Sorry about that. I know how many people have built little, angry\u00a0sand castles out of the notion we have been secretly plotting in backrooms and handing out commission cheques like drunken pirates on a shore leave, but the simple truth is that we haven’t. I know, I know, that ruins the whole conspiracy theory thing\u00a0for some folks. I might as well have said \u2026…… click below for more \u2193<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,10,96],"tags":[618,35,140,39],"class_list":["post-3087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collingwood","category-municipal-politics","category-social-order-disorder","tag-collingwood","tag-conspiracy","tag-council","tag-municipal-politics-2"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":9648,"today_views":1},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3087"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3112,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3087\/revisions\/3112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}