Aeons Ago

(Moved from it's previous location on the Personal Blog).

When I was first elected ,Standing Committees of Council were the norm. Three composed a committee.The joint Fire Committee of Newmarket and Aurora is the only standing committee left.
It works fine.

Forty years ago, the Mayor and Clerk jointly prepared a report on Committee appointments. Membership had to reconcile with meeting schedules.Everyone carried an equal share of the work load.

We had a Town Planning Board. Recreation Commission and an Arena Management Board. Council had representation on the boards but they were essentially citizen boards.Committees were entirely elected.

New Councillors got Bylaws and Fire Committee. Every Councillor was chairman of a committee . vice chair of another, member of another or appointed to a board or commission.

Committee meetings were private. Councillors and staff sat as equals at the table and discussion was frank and free.When the report was presented to Council, the Committee chair was expected to be sufficiently well versed to support the recommendation.

Bylaws were never given three readings at the same sitting. First and second reading would be given. Third would come at a future meeting.

It gave the public a chance to know what we were about. A chance to bring concerns to the attention of a Councillor or six and the Mayor. A chance for sober, second thought and to make changes if need be.

The system served us well. It allowed recommendations to be vigorously challenged in public  without reflecting on the competence of a Supervisor or Manager. Debate in Council was between elected representatives. Staff weren't even there except on exceptional occasions. Of course, we didn't have the phalanx of professionals on the payroll anyway.

Councillors could participate in any committee.They didn't often. Small numbers meant no stuffy protocol . If you thought somebody's comment was asinine,you could say it without causing offence because it wasn't public and you were just as likely to get the same back.

The press weren't there to hear it. No risk of a raunchy headline.  It was natural give and take. Nobody was trying to shaft anybody for the sake of publicity and we got the job done.

I didn't see  responsibility of the press the same as Council then and I don't see it that way now.

Decisions were made by the elected, who accounted to the people who elected them, who chose them to make the decisions. It never entered anybody's head to challenge another person's integrity let alone set up a Code of Conduct, with a third party to judge and with penalties yet.

What scandal have we had in Aurora to justify that self-righteous crap.

Nowadays, we have almost a hundred people appointed to advisory committees; some of them chair committees, like the Economic Development Advisory Committee.

This term, Councillor Wilson was the original chair of that Committee. Councillor MacEachern obtained tapes of the meetings. When a report came before Council, MacEachern would speak to it on the basis of what she heard on the tape. Wilson quietly quit. It provided  the opportunity to name a friend as chair who is now a candidate for Council.

The Mayor recently directed staff to prepare a report on "the accomplishments of advisory committees". When presented , the Mayor noted it was a lot of reading and asked for staff to condense it. When that task was completed by staff, the Mayor's name showed as head of every committee as ex-officio.Decisions were noted as Advisory Committee accomplishments.

For example, the Environmental Committee was "cited " as having "hired" an enviromental engineer.

The Arboretum a volunteer group, without a single elected representative among them were given $100Ks to spend as they saw fit.

Management Board of the Culture Centre, has half a million dollar budget to buy culture for the great unwashed, with a guaranteed annual increase of 3%. without a single Councillor among them to represent  the public's interest.

That budget is new spending.

It is .25% more than the three year union contract we just ratified after eight months   with labour lawyer representation of negotiation.

Only a Council with no sense whatsoever of the authority they received from the voters would, for one minute have accepted what Mayor Morris and Councillor Mac Eachern and their friends contrived to put over on them during this term.