I attended a meeting of Renfrew Town Council last night, something I’ve not done in a very long time. I wanted to get a sense of the dynamic of the place, the personalities present, political and administrative, official and non-official. As in most such endeavours, information was gleaned, intelligence was gathered.
There were only four members in the public gallery, so I’ll have to assume that the legions of voters and interest groups out there ravenous for news emanating from a council meeting must have been taking it in via livestream. But just like hockey, watching on television and seeing it live and in person are two different event experiences. Seeing it live, up close, physically almost right there in the middle of it owing to the size of the room and its configuration, is far more personal, immediate, and telling.
I was half-expecting to see a ranking officer from the Ontario Provincial Police attending, possibly as a participant, perhaps, like me, as a witness. But I saw no Bright White Shirts in the gallery, so no such luck there. Mine remained the brightest white shirt in the crowd.
Too bad only four of us got to see all of this, but that’s on the public, not council. So it was me, two gentlemen from a senior’s hockey club looking for a reduction of ice-time costs, and a former mayor and councillor busily scribbling notes for the entire two hours of the open meeting.
I had attended to get a look at the several people in the room who had failed to return an email outreach I had made to them late last week. I wanted to see what it was about them that made them feel I could be dissuaded just by being simply ignored, a policy akin to an ostrich, its head, and the sand. One councillor had even blocked my communication attempts, prompting me to wonder if I was embroiled in some sort of adolescent Facebook fight.
I also attended because the meeting agenda, posted the week before, indicated that a certain topic was to be addressed in the open, a topic very closely linked to an issue that I’d stumbled upon after doing a media segment on this site early last week. Interestingly, that agenda item never made it into the meeting that I saw, at least the part that was open to the public.
An agenda item scratched from a publicized agenda is telling. Telling of what I don’t know, not yet anyway, but telling of something nevertheless. Generally, when we don’t want to talk about something within earshot of others, there’s a strong indication that something’s going on behind the scenes that we don’t want others to know about. And this a council that invokes s.239 Municipal Act exceptions to enter closed meetings on a regular basis. The exceptions cited last night were legitimate, I had no problem with it procedurally, and honestly, it’s often a hell of a lot easier to have fruitful and open discussions behind closed doors so as not to be open to the kind of criticism that often precludes such fruitful and fulsome discussion taking place.
The public has a right to interact with its council, that’s obvious, or if you’re Jordan Peterson, axiomatic. (Jordan likes words like that. Makes him sound smart). But most often, residents will interact with council after the fact, meaning that they’re reacting to a decision that council has made. But voters do have some expectation of having some inclination as to what council may do, or may be considering doing, an interaction that is before the fact, or before a decision has been made.
I’m left to wonder, among many things, if the scratching of the agenda item had anything to do with absence of the OPP White Shirt. But I only half-expected that person to be there. I was expecting to see Town Council there, as in all of it, as in all seven of them. Two, councillor Clint McWhirter and Reeve Peter Emon were absent. So, while having two members missing from a seven person council still allowed Council to meet its quorum threshold, it can’t refute the fact that fully 30% of your council was missing this night, leaving only 70% to potentially make critical voting decisions. In other words, five people, all of whom were elected by a paltry 44% of the eligible electorate, were put in a position where they had to wrestle, and potentially decide major issues and considerations before them. It also gave the remaining five members more inherent power to push any personal agenda they may have, a problem when less than half the eligible voters don’t show up to vote.
Yes, democracy is messy. But if it wasn’t, everyone would be doing it.
The personal dynamic was an education.
The administrative side of things is in a state of flux and dysfunction, not the fault by any means of the people holding those positions, but more owing to the fact that the people once holding those positions have bolted. The last time I can recall a mass exodus similar to this involved the Titanic, which as we know, didn’t end particularly well. So we have a situation where council members pose questions of procedure as well as requests for updates and clarifications involving a myriad of things happening around town. They were asking these questions to several people who had the preface “Acting” in their official titles. Procedurally, administration had all the correct answers, so there is that. But on the nuts and bolts of various contracts, particularly construction contracts, the administrative staff was handcuffed by the fact that many of them were in their jobs for a very brief period of time, new to their portfolios, and from the sounds of things, in some pretty deep water left to them by departing officials who may have forgotten to pull the stopper after using the sink. This led to frustration on all sides, something completely understandable, but almost impossible to disguise with an audience sitting mere yards away. The tone was polite and respectful, but the frustration was real and tangible.
Nobody seemed to notice my presence, and that’s cool, since it’s not about the fans, it’s about the players and the game, if this can be likened to a game. The hockey gentlemen bolted at first opportunity, politely hanging around after making their submission, hitting the exit with the kind of movement that a fire drill would hope for. You could see how these guys continue to play hockey. So it was just me and the former mayor/councillor, a person who was a member of the previous town council, only that time without the gavel.
And by golly, they sure took note of her as she was taking note of them. There’s obviously a history here, maybe even a present, and owing to the copious note-taking, (or furious doodling with the look of furious note-taking) perhaps even a future. But that’s between them.
I will say this. Whenever that former mayor/councillor made any kind of move, everyone in that room went eyes-on. They took note themselves. I witnessed this because I was looking at them as they were looking at her, going against the grain so to speak, seeing them in a moment where they assumed they weren’t under observation. I took note of her movements as well, but out of my peripheral vision, not prone to rookie mistakes like that. That’s why my vision focus was directed into the mosh pit, and that’s how I noticed that everyone, politicians, staff, and support staff, tracked her movements as one.
You don’t get this stuff on television.
Perhaps I was a bit jealous. I mean, I cleaned up just to sit in the gallery. I even washed my hair, for God’s sake, just to get rid of the hat-hair look that seems to be my default the last couple of years. And while I had to re-acclimate myself to wearing a dress shirt and jacket, I thought I presented in an acceptable manner. But no eyes for me (great discipline) but all eyes for her (not great discipline).
Maybe some day I can get the eyes, not that I’m really looking for that. Perhaps I’ve not yet successfully come to their attention, but I have an article scheduled for Thursday night that brings my concerns right out into the open. And I’m sure they won’t like it. Not one bit.
They probably won’t lie this one either, but there it is.
Perhaps something will happen in the interim. Maybe I get unblocked. Maybe somebody reaches out to see exactly what my issue is. Maybe people will emerge from the other side of their egos and actually try to do the right thing, the right thing for people, both advantaged and disadvantaged.
I’ve tried to do all this quietly, and respectfully, but it appears they will have none of it. Perhaps they’re taking advice
Proof that bad advice is as cheap as a No-Frills apple on sale, with the same potential for indigestion.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 