Town Council has been struggling with the composition of an HR — Human Resources — committee, or panel, or tribunal, or whatever other term they might come up with to adequately describe a small group of people tasked with representing the town in grievance procedures involving town employees.
There are a plenty of big-ticket, red-seal, five-alarm topics and issues that our seven elected politicians can grapple with, and disagree over, some involving millions of dollars, even tens of millions of dollars. But it’s this HR issue, a veritable fart in a mitten, that has them contorting themselves with lines of reasoning that shift as easily as the tall verdant grass in a jaunty spring breeze.
Ma-Te-Way, the Town Hall renovation, construction overages, lights for ballfields, integrity investigations, demands for resignations, demands for defenestration from committees, all of this pales in comparison with the steep and rocky slope that leads to the top of Mount HR.
Frankly, it’s tough and befuddling to watch, sort of like watching fish flopping around in the bottom of the boat in terms of futility, but that’s not a really good analogy given that you have to catch fish in order for them to flop around in the bottom of the boat. These folks can’t seem to get a hook into anything, much less decide whether or not they’re going to keep it or throw it back. It’s got nothing to do with the boat, bait or tackle. They’re just really poor fishermen, and worse, fishermen in the same boat at odds with one another over weighty matters of fishing theory.
Of all the politicians, Councillor Jason Legris seems to be the one I most identify with on this issue, although there are two others who seem to share his position, but also appear to be a tad whimsical in the rigour of their opinions. In other words, the other two cannot be considered to be solid on this, and that jaunty breeze mentioned earlier would have no difficulty in dislodging them from the rationale behind their last vote. These two seem more intent on sniffing the political air to see if it’s prudent to move forward on anything, and if in doubt, they’d prefer to table, postpone, or otherwise assign the issue to political purgatory instead of resolving something that’s minor, but becomes important through their inaction, along with the opposition of the other four.
Legris and I both feel there’s a need for council representation on this HR committee, which from what I’ve learned and am now given to understand, is the minority position. That’s not to say it’s wrong, or incorrect, it just simply means that there are more than a few people out there who are vehemently entrenched with the idea of keeping council off the committee, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because they don’t “think” there ought to be, which all by itself amounts to nothing in terms of making a legitimate point.
All due respect to their thinking and feeling, but thoughts and feels have little concrete to them, and aren’t the stuff for winning arguments, unless of course you’re locked into a small-town mentality and comfortable with their four-vote majority, assuming they could get all four votes to show up at the same meeting.
In the community, I’ve discovered people who actually watch council meetings via the livestream YouTube feed who are equally perplexed by Council’s proclivity to tie itself into knots on this topic. But every single one of them was in agreement: there should be no council representation on this HR committee. No reason given, just that they shouldn’t. Even the mayor, with his own opposition to the idea, at least attempted to come up with a reason behind that opposition, something having to do with allowing senior staff to perform their roles unhindered and unencumbered by elected councillors mucking everything up. If I read him correctly, and I often don’t, it has the feel of saying that senior staff should enjoy the confidence of Council when it comes to issues pertaining to in-house staffing and grievance.
I agree in theory, but have to disagree for practical reasons.
The notion of administrative staff enjoying the confidence of the elected Council is by no means a new one, and that confidence is absolutely important in any mature organization, especially if that organization is intent n getting things done and fulfilling their mandate.
But that’s where I get off the bus.
We had senior staff that enjoyed the “confidence” of elected officials in the not-so-distant past, and they ran rough-shod over the politicians and everyone else, going rogue and contributing mightily to the dire financial straits that Renfrew currently finds itself in, and will finds itself in for the foreseeable future. That’s enough for me right there to ensure that Council has an eye on every single ball that’s in the air. It’s called prudence and oversight.
This isn’t the same as the openness and transparency that staff and Council mouth quite a bit about but then go in whatever direction they please, hidden safely behind the walls of a discernible lack of accountability. That lip-service is simply that, something to put in the window, but not reflective of what’s happening inside the store or in the stock room. I believe the better term is window dressing. It’s also disingenuous at best, and dishonesty is another word that could be thrown around.
There are some of us out here who aren’t as extraordinarily stupid as they believe most of us to be, and can see through that without too much difficulty. So far, though, their assumption that most of us are indeed stupid, or just don’t care, has served them well.
Every committee of Council has at least one, and often two councillors as members. Working groups and steering committees are the same. But when it comes to an HR panel, oh my God, that’s just different. Almost as if it’s far more important than anything else they do, which doesn’t say a lot for all those committees, working groups, and steering committees.
An HR panel is involved in the resolution of a labour grievance, which is often far from conciliatory in nature, and often confrontational. No elected person wants to have anything to do with that because it puts the elected person right in the face of a worker and union reps, people who might be voters, or have family and friends who are voters. In a town where less than half of the eligible voters actually do so, a half-dozen malcontents can do some legitimate damage to the electoral fortunes of a politician here in Apathyville. One guy snuck in by a couple of dozen votes last time out, and the mayor’s race was also close. A busload of unhappy campers might be the difference between a chair in chambers and a political park bench along the proposed Bonnechere Trail.
Another argument is that whatever happens in the HR issue, if it were to have financial ramifications, it would come to the attention of the full council anyways, so therefore Council would already have some say and “oversight.” A spurious argument, unless of course you’re willing to divest every single committee, working group, and steering committee of their council representatives.
Staff would love that. Good government wouldn’t.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 