The circus comes to town every couple of weeks when Town Council has its regularly scheduled dog-and-pony-show exercise that passes itself off as municipal democracy in action. And despite everyone performing their roles, with varying degrees of success, the production is made up seemingly of a council rubber-stamping whatever the administrative side of things wants it to rubber stamp. Mind you, a couple of councillors will periodically raise objections to this, but will often get out-voted if they raise their concerns to the level of making a motion
That’s because here in Renfrew, we have what looks to be a chimera of democracy in play.
Elected councillors are flummoxed by redundant and poorly organized agenda briefing documents, almost always numbering over a hundred pages, two-hundred pages, and often more. This is how administration does it, firing smoke grenades to obfuscate things enough that councillors routinely pass what’s put in front of them because, as some have said, they trust the department heads to manage their departments with effectiveness and due diligence.
Sort of like the last council did.
When a councillor objects to the volume of material and the poor amount of lead time with which to work with it before a meeting, the administrators sit there silently, or offer excuses and justifications, often involving how overworked they are and how much of a mess they inherited from previous administrators. They play a tag-team shell game with our elected representatives that almost always succeeds in them doing absolutely nothing about the nature of the councillor’s concern. It’s a concerted shoulder shrug, maybe a little game of whack-a-mole, and off we go to the next item.
Then, two weeks later, another agenda-dump of hundreds of pages of poorly organized documents hits the inbox of the councillors on the Friday before the Tuesday meeting. Almost as if the complaint hadn’t been raised in the first place. And then, in the meeting itself, we’re treated to staffers literally reading from the document itself, as if the document were both a print hand-out and meeting script. And the elected fellows just sit there and, whatever.
We do what we want, and if we ignore you long enough, you’ll go away.
The apparent operational motto for senior administration over at Fort Renfrew. A motto that can also be fairly applied to the elected members of council as well, but not as precisely, since much of the “doing” they perform seems to be the doing of nothing. Seven elected politicians, put in the window for show. Window dressing with nothing in the supply room to back it up.
If a councillor were to have the temerity to suggest, let alone insist upon change, the tag-team approach comes from all sides of the outer perimeter, where the staffers sit and the real power resides. They sigh, display the body language of annoyance, almost as if they were dealing with some kid who just doesn’t get it. They even text each other during the meeting, cheering each other on. It has the appearance of high school, where the students run laps around the hapless supply teacher at the front of the class, a person with the assumed intent to do well but sabotaged from every quarter. I’ll bet these people were fabulous at it when they were in high school themselves, which judging from their behaviour, may have been not long ago.
If the councillor wants to go so far as to make a motion directed at the practice in question, out comes the labyrinthine maze of legislative and self-created by-law necessities that must be followed procedurally in order for such a motion to see the light of day, never mind the steps that must be successfully navigated before such a thing can be passed. And that may only lead to further discussion at another meeting off in the future, an event where all this chicanery is repeated. And through it all, administrators almost always seem to circle the wagons in mutual support, almost like the elected members in front of them are nuisances to be put up with.
And sometimes, It almost seems like they mock them. And sometimes, if true, it would appear that they would have cause to do so and get away with it, given the meekness displayed by the inner ring of elected politicians.
In fairness, this doesn’t seem to be the case for all admin types. Some department Directors take a more staid, professional approach to meetings, reporting as necessary, and not defensive in body language that I can discern. But others, not all, but some seem to have some sort of chip on their shoulders, like they’re entitled to run the place as they see fit, and apparently resent anyone calling them on any aspect of it.
It’s too bad, really, because they are the supporting staff, not the major decision-makers. But when the decision-makers allow themselves to be bullied in to passing things along, then you can see who runs the shop by default.
By force of personality, the Town Clerk appears to run the show. She’s not supposed to but she does, whether intentionally or not, with almost everyone present deferring to her as if she were the ultimate authority on anything/everything. Yes, the Clerk is a key position in the municipal hierarchy, but she doesn’t hold any direct authority over any other department, and is in fact junior to the CAO, or Chief Administrative Officer. But that’s only when the CAO (Acting) doesn’t let a personality more dominant than hers take the lead. And there’s a lot of that “Acting” stuff happening right now, with a good chunk of the outer-ringers having either temporary of tenuous titles.
The Clerk’s chief function is as a legislative and administrative support to the mayor, and by extension, to the council. She is subordinate to both, or at least is supposed to be. But the mayor appears content to take on the role of Grampy Tom sitting at the head of the table at Christmas dinner, almost seemingly dependant upon the Clerk and the CAO that flank him. Every once in awhile he seems to rise up as if he’s in charge, but a quick look from either flank snaps him back into shape.
So right now, this is how your town appears to be run. It’s not the politicians in charge, it’s the generals.
And until the politicians snap the generals back into place, it’s going to continue. The mayor won’t do it, he looks like a lame duck playing out his final two years in municipal politics. The reeve won’t do it because he’s busy in Pembroke being the Warden, so he’s not even here most of the time. That leaves five elected councillors, four of them brand-spanking new — and a fifth who simply appears to enjoy being in the centre of things and in the bright lights — with the responsibility to reign this silliness in, and get everyone back in their correct hierarchical spots.
That’s a tough assignment when a lot of the people — staff — who should be reporting to you are attempting to run circles around you. And those same people know that if they can just hold out for another 20 months or so, you might be gone yourself by electoral defeat or just by leaving the arena in abject frustration.
Any change in any of this would require the dogs and ponies to realize that there’s a ringmaster they’re accountable to. And that would require someone strong enough to educate them on what their roles and responsibilities are.
Someone strong enough to be that ringmaster.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 