It’s Tuesday, December 10th and everyone’s phone calendar is beeping and pinging, flashing lights and spitting out confetti. Because tonight is the next episode of a Renfrew Town Council meeting, a must-have on any self-respecting phone calendar app.
What makes tonight so special? Well, nothing, really. I mean there’ll be some stuff, because there’s stuff enclosed in the 200 page agenda output, so sure, there’ll be some stuff.
Will there be the push and pull, the thrust and counter-thrust of argument and ideas? Will there be a clash of philosophical and ideological narratives? How about giant personalities, standing out and apart from the pack, voices ringing in oratorical hyperbole, inducing tears of inspiration?
In order of appearance, the answers would be no, no, and, well, no.
If you want that kind of thing, maybe you should just stay at home and wait for something to happen there. Then maybe go to bed.
That said, it’ll still be worth the effort to attend and attend to, especially if you’re a public policy nerd like me, a geek who can find some degree of thrill in poring over the mundane minutiae of a police services board budget. That is if a geek like myself can cut through the hedge of language and errors that such a document can present. I can understand why councillors would be tempted to say “never-mind, I can’t take it anymore, just pass the bloody thing” attitude when reading such stuff in preparation for a meeting. I’m not even a part of the meeting proper, and there’s no expectation of me having any input on its contents, but I still read the thing, three times actually, and once two weeks ago, in order to fully understand what the hell I was being called upon to understand. And I don’t fully understand the document still, not because of what the content might be, but in the way the content is articulated. So I’m left to speculate. Thank heavens the councillors, mayor and reeve are all functionally fluent in whatever language is being used, so they’ll get it right when it comes to decision-time, you can count on it.
I’m not entirely sure why some types of material can’t be made ready to council as it arises in the hallowed halls of administration. Is it because we’re married to the idea of deadlines, which has the carry-on effect of having everything come due at the same time, all to be loaded into that dump truck we refer to as an agenda, which then dumps its contents onto people who have lives in addition to their public ones, and who don’t get compensated nearly enough to have a reasonable expectation of perfect diligence in deciphering those agenda add-ons?
Why are four pages of a County Council Report buried within the meeting preparation materials? Seven pages from a Renfrew County District Health Unit report. Five pages from AMCTO, or The Association of Municipal Managers, Clerks and Treasurers of Ontario, who declare themselves to be “experts” in municipal governance. Ten pages from the AMO, or Association of Municipalities of Ontario. Eight pages of correspondence from other jurisdictions, federal, provincial, and municipal, all articulating causes that are important to them and how they’d like to make them important to us. Five pages of a back-and-forth email chain between a citizen looking for information and an organization going through hoops not to provide it.
Forty-four pages of material not directly relevant to the meeting at hand. Forty-four pages of background information that could easily be forwarded to council as it arrives or as it presents. But it’s tossed into the agenda anyways, because I guess that’s the way it’s always been done.
My goodness, is there no system or scheme of organization by which information can be classified, ordered, stored, and shared? Different kinds of traffic in different lanes, maybe?
Express lanes are for express traffic. Bus lanes are for buses. Bike lanes are for bikes. Truck lanes for trucks. Sidewalks for walkers, I think you get the concept. But don’t take that for granted because some people don’t seem to get the idea that information can flow along a similar principle as well. And so we end up with a bulging suitcase of stuff that appears as if it was packed by somebody with no travel plan at the last possible minute with no overall sense of how important organization can be to a successful trip. One can only hope that such folks aren’t in charge of getting the tickets and lodgings.
Enough agenda-bashing. Surely there’s more to tonight than carping on a bunch of throw-in documents.
Looking at the agenda, I see that the Gum Annihilator will be in attendance on the outer-ring, and it’s always something to observe someone out for a really good chew. Maybe she’s got one of those health apps on her watch that keeps track of maxillary-cardio metrics, and if so, she’s solid. Speaking of that cell phone, it’ll probably be with her as well, so we’ll see if that creates any awkwardness at the meeting, as it may have done at a previous meeting. We can only hope.
A Renfrew resident is on tap for an appearance, and she seems spittin’ mad by the sound of it, if you look at her email exchanges with the mayor and town staff. Shockingly, there’s no evidence of the mayor responding to her at all via email, which does actually appear to be his modus operandi with respect to citizen outreach, a form of response known as HISS, or Head-In-Sand Syndrome. Or perhaps a touch of JPRS, or Just Plain Rude Syndrome. Take your pick.
It appears this citizen will be stating her case right after the last note of the anthem fades, and boy, is she gonna “give ‘em the ol’ what fer.” It’s just that deputations before council have a time limit attached to them, and I’m not entirely sure she’s counting on that, as her rules of engagement seem to be at variance with council’s and staff’s. Honestly, I have the luxury of just witnessing and keeping my mouth shut, so how it plays out will have no immediate effect on me one way our the other, other than the promise of some serious entertainment value, particularly if Councillor Dick gets involved and rises to her defence. Or if police are called to drag her out of chambers. Or Councillor Dick.
There will be a report on Renfrew’s Master Transportation Plan, and that’s something that has to be interesting to just about anyone who drives or moves about town, now and into the future. I posted highlights of that plan yesterday just to give a birds-eye view of the proposals, but tonight the experts will speak on it. And these experts don’t read from the agenda document, they actually speak to their topics, head and eyes-up, knowing their portfolio topics. So this is legitimately anticipated.
The Bonnechere River Parks and Trails Working Group has a report buried in the agenda somewhere, all two pages of it. Seems the group had a meeting on November 19, a gathering that was absent four group members, possibly all civilians and citizens who were obviously over-matched by the prospect of a 12:30 PM meeting, perhaps due to employment commitments. Nevertheless, the group was able to bash-on without them, dealing with two items, and handing over the lead to both action items to Amanda Springer, the woman who left me locked-out of the building three meeting ago. Yes, Amanda, I’m still stinging a little bit from that one.
The working group has resolved to meet again on December 18, 2024, but they’ve scheduled a just-in-case date of early January 2025 in case folks can’t show up in December. There was no indication of an additional just-in-case meeting date should nobody show for the January just-in-case date. I don’t know, you might want to look at that attendance situation, or maybe even the group composition.
To finish, I do understand that a Town Council Meeting might not be the most scintillating Tuesday experience for anyone looking for a way to spend their free time after a visit to Odie’s. I don’t think by any means it’s a situation calling for a case of beer and all your buddies gathering in the garage to watch on the big screen kind of thing, but still, it’s not totally devoid of important things and high human drama. Yes, it’s available via livestream on YouTube, but you miss a lot of the “action” because you’re dependant upon the camera angle, whereas in person you see it all, whatever that “all” happens to be.
That is, of course, before they retreat behind closed doors, as they are wont to do.
I already have my shirt, jacket and pants picked out, only the footwear needs to be determined, and that’s dependant upon Environment Canada’s latest advisory. So hell, ya, I’m ready.
No matter what, I’m sure there’ll be plenty to comment upon on the morrow.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 