Only a couple of months into the new Yorkton city council term, three new members of council (two others were absent, and two incumbents voted No) decided that council only needs to meet every three weeks, instead of the every-other-week schedule that has been in place for several decades.
I was flabbergasted (now there’s a word you hear often, but seldom see in print) by the decision. My flabbergastedness (okay, I made that up) is the result of a number of things, based on my years of experience on city council, and recent events.
Firstly, the five new members of city council elected in October ran, by and large, on a platform that claimed the city needs closer oversight by council. They pointed to a number of problems in the past few years, including road closures.
Some also ran on a promise that council would be more open, more transparent, so that residents know what’s going on at city hall.
Well, that oversight and transparency happens at council meetings. If you have fewer council meetings, it is inevitable that the administration will take more control, because somebody needs to keep the city running. If council is not involved as frequently, the administration will fill the void.
And therein lies the crux of the problem.
A city government is intended to be, and should be ruled by policies and procedures put in place by city council, the elected representatives. The recommendation to hold fewer meetings was made by the administration.
That oversteps their bounds, in my opinion. The members of city council are the owners, in a very real sense, of the city council meeting. The administration is there to provide advice and answer questions. A council that allows the administration to recommend how it should operate, other than to provide information about the legal limits and framework, is giving up its authority — authority which the new members said they wanted to reclaim only a few months ago.
Yes, I know that administrators feel that council meetings are a lot of work, take a lot of time, and cut into their evening hours. The meetings are, at best, an inconvenience, and at worse a pain in the butt. So be it. Democracy is not about convenience.
There are other problems with fewer council meetings, as previously pointed out in this newspaper. There are certain things that need to come to a council meeting, such as approvals of contracts, presentations and petitions from the public, and things that provincial legislation states must be dealt with by council.
The opportunities to do all of that will now be less frequent, and could impact or delay issues that are time-sensitive. Yes, some of them can be done by simply polling council members by email to get agreement or consensus, but that doesn’t meet the transparency test. Far too much city business is already conducted in closed meetings, but that’s a topic for another day.
And finally, there is this question: 20 per cent fewer council meetings… does that mean less pay for the mayor and councilors?
Councilors are now paid $21,641 per year. Let’s say they attend 50 council and committee meetings a year. From my own experience, that is a very high estimate, but let’s use that number. That’s over $400 for a meeting that seldom takes more than a couple hours, with lots of money left over for the time it takes to answer phones and talk to people who stop them on the street.
Not bad; that’s as much money per meeting as lots of people make in a week, so we don’t have to feel sorry for our council members. Nor should we settle for them reducing their workload.
Comments? See this and previous columns at www.mytwobits.ca.
