Cat Got Your Tongue

Hardly a word about  Council's choice to fill the vacant seat. I M told the twitosphere is equally silent.

My  reader  numbers took  a slight leap back to norm.indicating interest in what was being said. But nothing was. 

For the same, reason I guess no reasons, were given for anyone's choice when the deed was done.

The format recommend by staff and adopted by Council  excluded  opportunity.

It did provide opportunity for Councillors to ask questions. Except for Councillor Pirrie who asked each candidate if they were available to take the seat immediately. And myself ,who spent late and early hours composing  questions , Nobody else  took up the chance for further discovery.

Not a. Peep. Not a word....Not a dickey bird.

Candidates.  answers revealed nothing.The questions were pointed. Candidates could not afford to give answers without  risk of offending just about everybody else around the table.

That aspect of the format was  useless.

Questions are a regular part of all -candidate meetings  for elections. 

But this was not that.

This was appointment..

The outward trappings were and were seen to be ,nothing more than a facade hiding  a charade, obscuring  but not quite , a mockery and an insult to all present.

All- candidate meetings are nor organized by municipal bureaucracy.They haven't been since the

seventies. . And then they were organized by the municipal Clerk who was statutory officer and Elections officer.

Nomination meetings were held, names were moved and seconded and written on a chalk board.

Candidates for Mayor had four minutes to speak ,candidates for council had ,two. School  Board candidates had their  time and Hydro Commissioners as well .

Wells Street school auditorium would be filled to capacity ,with people in the hall and spilling down the steps outside.  

Elections were held every twelve months. 

People tended not to  make promises they were not likely to be able to keep.

They were  different days. Better days.

Rules set  by the Elections officer,who was also municipal clerk  and  municipal treasurer and Chief Factotum ,were always  the same and understood by all. 

There was no room for  varied interpretation or opportunity for a Council to vote and adopt  a procedure that suited their purpose. 

The law was the law, the clerk and elections officer  had authority beyond Council and  there was no opportunity for varying interpretations or debate on the issue. 

Since that ended ,one  official candidate meeting has been organized by Library staff but politicians still have have no say in the format.

Nor should they.

I will not re-hash my  reasons for opposition to the format recommended by the administration except to repeat what Council had to do was appoint not elect. 

It is what we did. 

The format  we used  merely set up a cruel illusion of open competition. 

It sucked people in to thinking there was an opportunity..

 It was disrespectful.

Tt was empty. 

It lacked dignity. 

Citizens who accepted the town's were degraded by the process. 

There was no opportunity for. nomination and seconding. No arguments of advantage  or liability. 

Essential tension of decision-making was non-existent.

In a public forum one cannot argue the merits of one individual over another. or  alternately point out deficits. 

There was no opportunity, to arrive  at consensus . No chance to make the decision unanimous  and provide  assurance  to the community, the person chosen had complete support  of Council.

The appointee to fill the seat vacated by  an elected Councillor can claim   no such confidence. 

The community  similarly has no such assurance. 

The process failed all tests.

the silence greeting the appointment is mute testimony to the fact.