{"id":32978,"date":"2025-02-15T09:56:21","date_gmt":"2025-02-15T14:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/?p=32978"},"modified":"2025-02-15T09:56:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-15T14:56:21","slug":"dither-dally-and-doddle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/dither-dally-and-doddle\/","title":{"rendered":"Dither, Dally, and Doddle"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Indecision\"I<\/span>f I were looking for a single word to succinctly describe Collingwood Council, it would not be ‘decisive.’ Nor would it be progressive, capable, innovative, or enterprising. I would not even apply the word ‘adequate’ much less ‘competent.’ No, the word that comes to my mind is ‘inept<\/em>.’<\/p>\n

At the November 18, 2024 meeting of council<\/a>, Mayor Hamlin announced that Councillor Brandon Houston was taking a leave of absence for an unspecified period of time and an unspecified personal reason. This didn’t set off many alarms because Houston’s lacklustre presence at the council table has not been noteworthy and I cannot think of any significant initiative or motion he has presented since being elected.<\/p>\n

A competent mayor would have had staff prepare for a longer absence and even a vacancy \u2014 I can only presume that Houston gave the mayor an actual reason for his absence and prepared her for that possibility. Any competent councillor hearing the news would have asked what happens if one of their members doesn’t return and asked about options. Nothing I have found suggests either was done. (but then, local media…)<\/p>\n

On January 24<\/a>, 2025, Houston announced he was resigning, again without specifying a reason.*<\/strong><\/span> With a council meeting (committee of the whole) only three days away (January 27<\/a>), any competent mayor would have prepared staff for a discussion on the options and next steps and had a report ready to be read. That seems not to have happened. But what did? Council boldly sprang into action and… asked for a staff report. Whew. Another decision avoided.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind that three of those at the table \u2014 Jeffrey, Doherty, and Hamlin \u2014 were on the previous council when Councillor Tina Comi was bullied out of office<\/a> by her fellow council members and resigned. And they were on the same council when the gormless and feckless<\/a> Mayor Brian Saunderson shirked his responsibilities to Collingwood and scurried off to run for the PCs in the provincial election. So they have had staff reports on the options previously.<\/p>\n

Anyone on council could have asked staff for those reports instead of demanding a new one. Or ask for the report about the resignation of Councillor Joe Gardhouse. They could have read their own Procedural Bylaw<\/em> (By-law No. 2021-090<\/a>) which outlines in detail the process for filling a vacant seat. They could have read the Municipal Elections Act<\/a><\/em> to learn who might be eligible to fill that vacancy. Or they could even read the Municipal Act<\/a><\/em>, which governs everything they do and which every one of them should<\/em> have read in its entirety. They could have read a plain-English description<\/a> of their options on the government’s own website. They could have looked all of this up on their laptops right then and held the discussion about what to do next.**<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

But no, they chose to wave their hands<\/a> and procrastinate. Hardly novel for this council<\/a>, of course.<\/p>\n

That 14-page bureaucratese-dense staff report was presented to council on February 10<\/a>, towards the end of the agenda (14.2.4; Staff report C2025-03<\/a>).***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Step back a bit from the bureaucratic brouhaha and you can see there are only two real options:<\/p>\n

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  1. The democratic and ethical choice<\/strong>: go back to the candidates who didn’t get a seat and select one from those who people voted for previously. That would be me, who missed getting elected by five votes. Since I’ve been critical of previous councils, councillors, and their decisions here on this blog, picking me would only appeal to those very few at the table who actually believe in democracy.****<\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n
  2. The patronage choice<\/strong>: find a crony who didn’t run for office, and who maybe was a donor to the campaign of some at the table, and won’t make waves for the rest of the term. That was what was done in 2022 when Councillor Comi resigned<\/a> and was replaced by a campaign donor\/lobbyist and personal friend of many at the table (the democratic choice at that time would have been Tim Fryer, who applied for the seat). This corruption is accomplished by choosing the option to open the applications up to anyone interested, so a crony can apply. This is the mayor’s choice.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Council heard the clerk’s report, discussed it, hemmed, and hawed, sort-of-voted, and instead of moving forward chose to delay making a decision<\/a> for another two weeks, during which time one suspects some backroom arm-twisting will occur to get those who favour a democratic and ethical option to bow to the mayor’s choice of an open application. And then we’ll wait some more for the applications to come in, for council to read them, and probably ask for another staff report, then to hem and haw and debate the possibility of perhaps considering the options of maybe making a decision… and finally choosing the best crony for the role.<\/p>\n

    Maybe by June we’ll have an answer. Just in time for council to go on vacation…<\/p>\n

    Collingwood deserves better.<\/p>\n

    Notes:<\/h5>\n

    *<\/strong><\/span> Houston later explained his reason to the local digital media<\/a>, saying he needed to “focus on my health and my business for my own well-being.” Apparently the well-being of the community he had sworn an oath to serve comes second.<\/p>\n

    Risibly, the reporter who covered that story wrote, “Meanwhile, at council\u2019s regular meeting on Jan. 27, the remainder of council voted unanimously in favour of declaring Houston\u2019s seat vacant…” as if council had any choice to declare it vacant.<\/p>\n

    At the risk of injecting even more snark, I should also like to point out that it is the obligation of every candidate for office to look into and understand the role they are running for, to find out about the demands on personal and business time before<\/em> they put their name in, to read the key documents such as the Municipal Act<\/em> and Procedural Bylaw<\/em>, to read previous council minutes, to speak to town staff and council members both current and former for their perspective, and to discuss the potential burdens of office with family and coworkers to be sure you can fulfill them. Public service is a responsibility<\/em> that should not be entered into lightly, nor one to slough off when it gets busy. To give up halfway through your term of office is, well, like the scurrilous Saunderson<\/a>, to break your oaths, and run out on your responsibilities.<\/p>\n

    **<\/strong><\/span> There is an entire section of the Municipal Act<\/em>, from sections 258 to 268<\/a> covering absences and replacements, and numerous websites like Opencouncil.ca<\/a> that explain the process in easily understood language. The options for replacement have not changed in decades. The clerk or CAO could have explained them all to council within five minutes back when the vacancy was announced and a course of action chosen then. Instead, it was delayed a month, delayed, and then it will be delayed even more to give candidates the time to apply. Like I said: inept<\/em>.<\/p>\n

    ***<\/strong> <\/span>The staff report spends four of its 14 pages reprinting content from the procedural bylaw and provincial acts that the council members should all have read long before this meeting. But all they really needed to know before the discussion was in the 124 words in the conclusion on page 9.<\/p>\n

    ****<\/strong><\/span> Or, if they wanted a more qualified candidate with considerable experience in municipal politics, provincial organizations, infrastructure, and engineering that no one else at the table has: Norm Sandberg who ran for mayor.<\/p>\n

    Words: 1,226<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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    If I were looking for a single word to succinctly describe Collingwood Council, it would not be ‘decisive.’ Nor would it be progressive, capable, innovative, or enterprising. I would not even apply the word ‘adequate’ much less ‘competent.’ No, the word that comes to my mind is ‘inept.’ At the November 18, 2024 meeting of council, Mayor Hamlin announced that Councillor Brandon Houston was taking a leave of absence for an unspecified period of time and an unspecified personal reason. This didn’t set off many alarms because Houston’s lacklustre presence at the council table has not been noteworthy and I \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":[4,537,546,1775],"tags":[618,140,268,130,1044],"class_list":["post-32978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collingwood","category-council","category-ethics-and-behaviour","category-municipal-elections","tag-collingwood","tag-council","tag-democracy","tag-ethics","tag-morality"],"a3_pvc":{"activated":true,"total_views":451,"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\/32978","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=32978"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32986,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32978\/revisions\/32986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ianchadwick.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}