I Didn't Say That..

LivingInAurora.ca has left a new comment on your post "A Question Posed . Here's One Answer.":

Evelyn, you wrote: 'I find that several councillors are unable to express themselves in simple organized sentences and the thoughts or opinions they are attempting to state become blurred and unintelligible.'

Oh that is very sad to hear

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I did not write that, Anna. It was an observation  posted to the Blog  by a reader.

We had a single council  meeting in July and another in August.Two meetings a month on camera are the average.

Speaking while organising one's thoughts  is not as easy as it looks.The skill must be acquired.  But it is worth cultivating,  if only to become more comfortable doing  what people expect.

People say I do it well but I hate to watch .I hear myself repeating things and speaking in  disjointed  sentences.My enemies,I'm sure,  make much of it.

Actually, speaking  in debate is not required. No record is kept. It's not like Hansard.  The Municipal Act  stipulates only that a Councillor is required to vote.

In my early days, if a point had already been made, a Councillor in agreement would  simply say so:

".I agree with Councillor so and so" and the discussion would move along.  Everybody was conscious of the hour of adjournment and the need to complete town  business .

Deferring  business to the next meeting was by no means considered competent or efficient. It was  a sign of incompetence of  the chair. There's more to that job than wearing the Chain of Office.

Back then, we did not have cable t.v. We started  public forum. But few took advantage. Delegations were seldom and certainly nobody took  the microphone to demand Council bend to their demands.

There was a  clear understanding, if  one had a desire to participate, the thing to do was put your name on the ballot.

There was  never an occasion  a resident was encouraged to  delegate to call a Councillor a liar. Or  hurl unsubstantiated allegations and unfounded accusations at a member of Council.

I think it had to do with respect for the office we each  held and  the people who gave their confidence,for at least the term we served.

I have never mastered the discipline of detachment. I can live with the reality I have a single vote. That's not an option. It doesn't mean that outside of council meetings, I have to quietly accept or,perish the thought, pretend to agree with decisions having ongoing negative consequences for the community.

A waste of  trust and confidence and time and resources mitigate seriously against satisfaction from a job well done.

Having the blog and a direct conduit with people helps to makes up for that.

When I started it in August 2007, I hoped it would stimulate interest in the town's affairs and more people would turn out to vote. It didn't.

But since I started it, several more blogs have come into being.

One thing for sure...politics will never be the same  since people have had the opportunity to make their observations and contribute to the debate.