To me, John has the appearance of being a very nice man, one with an impressive resume and one who happens to be an “expert” on Strong Mayor Powers.
John appeared via video link at the last meeting of Renfrew Clown Council, where he was tasked with walking everyone through the democratic abomination of small mayor powers as handed over to any municipality with a McDonalds and a set of street lights. So Renfrew gets included, because we have those traffic lights, and even a Wendy’s, so game on.
One minor, yet annoying thing about John, though, is that neither God nor his parents apparently gave him a last name, which I’m absolutely cool with in theory, it’s just that I thought that practice was limited to Brazilian soccer stars and Indonesian dictators.
But I don’t make the rules. Small town strong mayors do. If a guy doesn’t want a last name, then he doesn’t have to have one. Unless a strong mayor comes along and makes him.
John plucked away for a time, giving background on the “rationale” behind the deeply flawed policy, and some pointers on some process matters. He crossed all the “t’s, and dotted all the “I”s if you will. He’s a municipal lawyer, so a guy like that speaking for anything more than five minutes is a recipe for a group nap, but his engagement with the topic ensured that everyone present, and all those watching on YouTube trapped aboard the Space Station could follow along with some sense of understanding.
But understanding isn’t the same as agreement.
The only quibble I would have with John is that he seemed to be on shaky ground when we got to Question and Answer time, where questions were put to the municipal expert and he kind of squirmed in his seat for all of them. Not the best look.
But when you’re standing on a surface that’s not grounded, not cemented into any notion of effective and responsible government, then it speaks volumes about the appropriateness of a policy that has the hallmarks of something thrown together on a used and discarded single-ply fast-food napkin.
Attempting to justify something that’s not justifiable is tough work, but John escaped the room unscathed, basking in the glow of the mayor’s thanks and effusive praise.
But, before he went, there was just one little piece of business that needed attention.
So, there’s this guy named Andrew Dick, and he’s a councillor, and he has this annoying habit of asking pertinent questions that the mayor and staff would rather not have come their way, often because the questions are little splashes of light falling over the Machiavellian machinations that the mayor and staff think they’re wizards at, or clever enough to pull off without anyone noticing. Those mayor/staff indulgences usually fall apart after Councillor Dick asks his questions. They’re annoying because they come close to awkwardly ferreting out the truth. I’m surprised the mayor hasn’t arbitrarily banned Dick from parking in the Town Hall lot. Or unilaterally cancelling his washroom privileges.
Councillor Dick asked John if the mayor’s move to promote the Town Clerk, Carolynn Errett, to Director and give her a wagon-load of cash as a raise is something “allowable” under the Strong Mayor thing. John fielded the question on the first hop okay, but then bobbled the ball, resulting in a whole bunch of “Gee, aw shucks, that’s a good question. Er, I’m not sure, but from the sounds of it, well sitting here right now, I’m not really sure 100%, but maybe?
Then he took a follow-up question, again from Dick, this one about the arbitrary nature of the mayor keeping the museum open without consultation, and whether Mayor Tom was allowed to do this. “Well, gosh, that’s a tough question. From how you’re describing it, there may well be peace in the Middle East someday, and my granny knits me warm socks every year, and man, are they warm.”
Even Mayor Tom got into the act with a question of his own, something about if Council were to be reduced to five members from the current seven, would he still get to keep his Strong Mayor badge and holster set?
John was ready for this one.
“Um, well, I get this question a lot, and if only the Jays could get more contact out of the upper spots of their batting order, there may well be snow in time for Christmas.” He closed by saying that, actually, he didn’t know and concluded with “How about those Leafs.”
Well, there’s your municipal expert. Nice guy, and thanks for coming out.
Even Councillor John McDonald thanked John for his presentation, but noted his disappointment that something like this, a pilot-project for a few years now, is still not totally ironed-out. Like it’s being rolled-out on the fly, without all the details considered or hammered down before unleashing it on the province, and on communities like Renfrew. And this is an essential point, because in the absence of defining guardrails, things like this can be abused, and perhaps in our case, already have.
Councillor Jason Legris wanted to know if these mayoral dictates from on-high were intended to be made public somehow, as in posting to the Town’s website. Clerk, er Director Errett, jumped on this one, telling Legris that, of course we post them on our website, that there’s a whole page that lists these things numerically. Except that’s absolutely bogus, since the three relevant documents to date had to be uncovered using the search bar, hardly transparency in its purest form. But this is the kind of cute trick the mayor and clerk, er director, try to pull off all the time, hypocritically mouthing the words of transparency while making a mockery of it and no doubt laughing at the rest of us over their brilliance.
Mayor Tom Stalin, er, Sidney, was all flummoxed by the nerve of Councillor Dick even asking the first question, bleating out a number points-of-order while off-camera, feeling that the councillor was out of line for asking the question about Director Errett’s big promotion and new-found wealth, here in a community where some people are going to be priced out of their homes by tax increases that have certain fingerprints all over them.
How dare you, Councillor Dick. How dare you, sir! Pistols at dawn!
By the way, it’s entirely inappropriate for me to compare Tom Sidney with Joseph Stalin. Uncle Joe could drink our strong mayor under the table no problem. He’d pick him up, dust him off, then drink him back under again. So there’s no real comparison at all. Stalin had no time for strong mayors. Instead, he kind of made a habit of shooting them, or assigning them new accommodation in a Siberian work camp. But we don’t do Stalin in these parts, and the assumption that all dictators are the same is a flawed one. And for the record, I’d take Mayor Tom over Uncle Joe any day of the week. That Stalin was a dangerous prick, whereas Tom is more a form of entertainment. So not a case of comparing apples to apples. These two are different apples.
So my error.
Honestly, the way things are, if I really wanted to give my objections life, I’d get in tight with the custodian and have him or her loosen the screws that support King Tom’s chair, in the hopes that, well, never mind. Again, totally inappropriate. Wanting to see the emperor ass-over-tea kettle in chambers is pretty juvenile and immature. That said, if I were to ever arrange for such a calamity, His Worship’s chair wouldn’t be the only one impacted. I mean, if you’re going to do something, and it’s pretty-much a one-time thing, why not get value for money, or value for effort?
It’s baffle-gabbing to me that this guy thinks he can run for mayor and win, especially in the face of the Errett promotion, the most politically tone-deaf thing I’ve witnessed in quite some time. This is an example of something that plagues many politicians, that feeling that everyone loves you, when in fact, nobody even knows you, but when they do, it’s because you were the guy who looks like he was taking care of his allies with his new-found shiny toy powers while rate-payers were struggling to keep things afloat in the same community.
If you’re Carolynn Errett, you have to think all of this is awesome, and it is. The cheques are clearing at the bank, the title looks good on the new business cards, and she now has the gravitas of being a fully-fledged director when she’s in the staff room surrounded by real directors at lunch time.
But she was always in charge anyways. The title and the money just makes it official.
A crossed “t”, and a dotted “I”.
My goodness, not long ago, Director Errett was a department secretary of some sort. Now look at her!
Which only reminds me of all the other people in history who started out as corporals only to attain the dizzying heights of power.
Tom Sidney, despite his Strong Mayor power, is not the one calling the shots over at Fort Renfrew.
There is, in fact, a higher power. A power that lay behind the throne.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 