At first, I thought it was just me.
I had encountered something that was increasingly frustrating about attempting to get some simple questions answered from anyone associated with Renfrew’s municipal government. Frustrating, and almost conspiratorial, although that word might be a bit of an over-reach, since my little local conspiracy doesn’t involve pizza shops, the deep state, or the World Economic Forum. Nevertheless, when you reach out to both political and administrative types within the organization, and you are universally ignored, then it does lend itself to the notion that there is some form of organized obstruction at play. I’ve now backed off that initial suspicion, mostly because I’ve seen all the actors in action, and now believe that any organized effort in that, or seemingly any other direction, would be simply beyond their scope of capabilities.
When I went over the materials for last Tuesday’s council meeting, I happened upon an item listed under correspondence. That item featured an email chain of back-and-forth between a local citizen and senior administrative staff. And it was a carbon copy, albeit featuring different issues, of what I had just witnessed for myself when I had made my own enquiries. Even the staff responses to the citizen were virtually identical, with a boilerplate response modified to fit the circumstances of the issue and the person requesting the information.
In a small way, I felt better, knowing that it wasn’t personal. Bad guys would say that in the movies before killing a guy, that it wasn’t personal, it was just business, which to me always seemed like it would be pretty personal for the guy about to get two behind the ear. Like small comfort there. As in hearing that, the guy’s gonna say “Oh, okay. Completely understand. What a relief. Carry on.”
Still, when you are comprehensively ignored, knowing you’re not the only one brings no significant measure of comfort.
I guess the thing that cemented it for me was learning that this was actually an organized effort to keep a lid on information, but not on a wide scale, but rather on an administrative scale. As in the mandarins, the gate-keepers, the un-elected members of senior administrative staff, taking it upon themselves to make policy on the fly, often and mostly without the knowledge of their political associates. As for the politicians ignoring non-confrontational requests for information is just bad political calculus, possible personal contempt, or a lack of maturely-developed professionalism, non of which are strong items on a resume for anyone holding public office. You can take your pick, but non of those reasons are particularly appealing.
But an organized attempt to keep people in the dark is a different matter altogether.
The key staffers at the head of the apex of administrative power are the Clerk and the Chief Administrative Officer, although in the case of the latter that would be Acting-CAO. These are the two most senior positions in the administrative hierarchy, and if you watch politics and government as I have and I do, you’ll quickly understand that oftentimes it will be these two positions running the place, with the mayor and council put in the window just for show. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here, but I’m not not saying it either. I’m still attempting to determine that.
This state of affairs was directly challenged on Tuesday evening by Councillor Andrew Dick, who alone took both council and staff to task for the manner in which the person asking the questions was “treated,” as in ignored and/or brushed off. And it was awkward.
But things are awkward for a reason, and often, almost always, there’s a deeper meaning behind the awkwardness. Otherwise it wouldn’t be awkward. So it’s moments like these that make for extremely illuminating back-and-forths, in this case between an elected councillor and non-elected staff. In fairness to all involved, Councillor Dick stressed more than once that this was a councillor/mayor issue, and that his comments weren’t necessarily directed at staff. You know, the old “It’s not personal, it’s business” kind of thing. Maybe that’s the case, and the solution does lay with the politicians, but there could be no way staff could have heard the comments without leaping to their own defence, which is precisely, and ineffectively, what they did.
Despite the new rage for transparency and openness, something this administration and council should be keenly aware of, there does exist a policy of obfuscation to be directed at problematic — my word — citizens who reach out for information. Particularly sensitive information that they, the mandarins, might wish to keep under wraps for reasons and concerns that may well be legitimate but that still fall under the purview of transparency and accountability. In other words, they have the information, but the information may be awkward, and its release may lead to additional enquiries, and away we go.
I can’t speak to the motivation of the party in question, as I don’t know that individual and have made no effort at outreach, the kind of thing I might do if I was seriously intent on causing trouble. But I did go through the email chain, and immediately recognized the fact that the information requested would be of a sensitive nature, and therefore “awkward” if it were to be released. I mean, once Joe Smith’s crazy dog gets out of the back yard, who the hell knows what mayhem might be visited upon the neighbourhood, right? So I get their reticence to come up with the answers and release them in a citizen request. But then again, as I said before, sometimes truth can be awkward, and it can make people look bad, and if those are “Important” people, then the stuff can really hit the fan. But it wasn’t the person asking the questions or seeking the information that made things awkward, but rather the people who did or didn’t do things as possibly revealed in disclosed information. It’s the optics around a perceived intent to conceal and protect such individuals, or groups of individuals, that make things awkward. Perhaps even things of potential embarrassment to staff, past, present, or both.
Council was told, by both the Clerk and CAO, that staff could be inundated with such requests, especially in the case of a citizen who has made repeated requests for information, and how that impacts the ability of staff to perform their regular day-to-day duties. They indicated that there was a research element involved, an element that ate up much valuable administrative time, an element that risked the very operational ability to undertake the business of running a municipality. The CAO even raised the spectre of the business of the Town of Renfrew “shutting down” if staff had to chase down information requested by a citizen.
To my reading, the citizen request involved the original email in the chain. All subsequent emails were directly linked to administration’s refusal to honour the original request, and not pertaining to any additional information sought by the citizen. The email responses from the town were the same ones I got, citing a rationale that was, at best, dubious. When challenged on that line of reasoning, admin quickly circled the wagons, declaring the request to be “political” in nature, and therefore beyond the purview of staff, directing the citizen to elected politicians, who may may or may not respond “as they see fit.” Pretty thin soup.
This is what happens when you cloak yourself in red before getting in the pen with a bull.
Maybe if they spent less time throwing up roadblocks, they might just be able to squeak in some time to keep the town running after all.
They both referred to this practice, which council seemed to know nothing about, as a “standard” practice, as if that were justification in its own right. They claimed that they had consulted other municipalities, name-dropping Ottawa for one, and had been advised that this was the standard for dealing with the “harassment” of the citizenry. I completely understand the dilemma, and know beyond doubt how some people can make a freaking horse’s patoot of themselves, but I didn’t see any evidence of that in this case. What I saw was a back-and-forth chain of emails that started with the original set of questions but then devolved into the remaining emails being about the Town’s attempt to keep things under wraps.
My own enquiries were just like this. A series of maybe four questions, with no gratuitous commentary surrounding them, universally ignored. Me going to the Town Hall to ask in person. Me being advised to go through a Freedom of Information process by the Clerk. Me being advised via an unsolicited email from the Acting CAO that my questions were “political,” and beyond the purview of staff. My only response, other than the original email itself, was simply to ask how asking for lease terms at Ma-Te-Way was a “political” question, and further asking who it was that makes that call. I received no return. And that’s where it sits. But I suppose it’s enough for town staff to label me as problematic, although I doubt my picture is on the lunchroom wall with darts embedded in it. Maybe there are pictures of other folks there, and it’s simply a matter of having enough room, and highlighting the need for a larger bulletin board.
For the record, a Freedom of Information request isn’t the panacea for all of this, and these administrators know full-well that to be the case. It could be rejected out of hand, for one. Secondly, they slap an administrative fee of $7.50/15 minutes for a number of different “research” costs as a further deterrent, with no guarantee of accountability as to how that time is spent or measured. Finally, such FOI requests can cough up documents that are redacted, blocking out key information, almost always the key information, so it’s not a really good investment, or sure investment for your administrative costs in applying for the request in the first place.
So, let me ask you this. If you were the boss, and you came out of your office and said “I need those lease figures for Ma-Te-Way,” how long would you expect for that request to be fulfilled? Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks? Like, we’re not searching through old bankers boxes in a subterranean vault under Town Hall, are we? I know that I could retrieve that information in seconds, in less than a minute, all for a cost of 50 cents if I use the fee scale articulated by the Town on its website.
And that website. It was cited as the repository of all the civic information a citizen might want or need, as if that was all anyone could ever hope for. Except that it’s not. In fact, it’s not even current with the various titles of the various staff members. It looks great, has a professional feel, but lacks the informational value the Acting-CAO and Clerk claim it has. Again, window-dressing, looking pretty, but not revealing the awkwardness of a near-empty storeroom in the back. So, sadly, that line of justification is a bit of a crock as well.
As to other municipalities advising on the standard practice of ignoring enquiries from problematic citizens, would anyone be willing to name the individuals from those other municipalities who provided our staff with this “standard” practice advice? Or were these more informal conversations, not official, not approved?
And just to finish up on that point. When someone says that something is a “standard” way of doing things, how is that a legitimate answer? What if the so-called standard sucks? What if it can’t hold the water of scrutiny on its own? To me, it sounds like the same “that’s the way we’ve always done it” argument, which completely ignores the possibility that the way we’ve always done it is wrong.
This is Renfrew. The “standards” observed before have cost, or will cost municipal taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. They will result in horrific decisions needing to made. It will mean that your streets will go unpaved, or paved at a much reduced rate, because the “way we’ve always done things” has left us in a situation where the cupboard is bare, and the prospects don’t look good. Remember, municipalities are not allowed to run deficits. I also know you can’t get money out of a rock, but that doesn’t stop desperate people from squeezing anyways. That money shortfall has to come from somewhere, and none of the options are going to be appealing. And we got there, in large part, because of a “standard” that wasn’t a really good standard to begin with. So the standard argument is incredibly weak, both intellectually and practically. If this is the best you’ve got, you’re in bigger trouble than you may think.
Another councillor suggested there ought to be a single point of contact for such enquiries. That, too, is an easy argument to make, but has its own flaws. What/who will be that single point of contact? Councillors, mayors, and reeves? Okay fine. Let’s just throw it onto a bunch of people making $1,927.00 a year to be the chokepoint. They’ll tell you that they themselves would find the necessary legwork exhausting, so I’ll bet that’s not what he was suggesting. Also, would they have any better luck at prodding bureaucrats for information?
For the record, no other councillors made comment. One wasn’t there, and neither was the reeve. The mayor weighed in with support for the staff, which is entirely consistent, because he doesn’t answer emails either. So it was a warm and satisfying moment when Councillor Dick pointed that out to him directly, in public, on camera. By the way, Councillor Dick is no champion himself when it comes to responding, but he at least apologized to the person in question for what he described as a “failure.”
So would it be staff, then? My goodness, we can’t do that because of the impending shut-down of the municipality. How many cats must perish in trees because the Town has collapsed under the weight of its transparency obligations?
The moment we get to the point where a councillor can’t be approached by a citizen-taxpayer-voter is the same moment we need to question the validity of our democratic institutions. So politicians, as a point of contact, must remain. I should say, that in my case, my questions were first sent to a councillor, who then directed me to the Clerk, and that’s where the crickets started to sing. Hamsters on wheels get to more places than I have with these people.
It’s this entire lack of respect and responsible protocol that has led to my fascination with all things Renfrew Council and all things Renfrew governance. This fascination takes time and effort. And as much as it gives me some sense of purpose, I’m sure I’d rather be writing about that poor cat stuck in the tree and the heroic efforts of our local firefighters in restoring the feline to its appreciative owners, cue the photo of the relieved child hugging the rescued cat.
Oh wait, that’s more of a yourFM thing.
My bad.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 