Okay, so maybe eight?
As in that’s how many people I think attended both sessions of the Structured Town Hall that was organized and hosted by Renfrew Town Council and some key members of the town’s administrative staff on Tuesday.
All we were missing was the creaking saloon door and the tumbleweed bouncing down Raglan.
Billed as an exercise in transparency and openness, it apparently wasn’t something that caught fire among the local citizenry, as three people attended the morning session ( if I can rely on the camera angles ) and another five people in the evening session. Both sessions were scheduled for two hours apiece, but neither made it much past the one-hour mark.
I can’t with confidence tell you why there was such an abysmal turnout, but I have theories, some of which may actually approach the mark. But it doesn’t really matter, I guess. Eight people is eight people, however you wish to cut that cake, and it’s tough to make a case for a better and healthier local democracy when a key constituency, that being the people, can’t be bothered to show up. And when stuff like that happens, that local democracy becomes even more fragile as the folks in charge can gauge reactions and possibly calculate that there’s really no need to get too worked up over citizen complaints or commentary when the citizens aren’t there to hold them to any appreciable standard. With that said, bravo to the eight who did take the time, and I’m glad Councillor Legris thanked them, all three of them and all five of them, during his remarks.
We live in a town where far fewer than 50% of eligible voters actually showed up to make their mark. There will be reasons for that as well, all by themselves, and yes I have even more theories, but for the moment I’ll hold off on any commentary directed towards that.
Is it because people didn’t feel jazzed-up to talk roads and sidewalks? That would be too bad given everyone has a story of a family member or pet going through the windshield as they travel along any number of streets in Renfrew. As former mayor Don Eady once said, Renfrew makes for a piss-poor coffee-drinking town, the piss-poor part being my own words. He was, of course referring to the Timmy’s Lap Dance, where the contents of your coffee comply with laws of physics to dump the scalding hot contents of your cup into your lap as you traverse a road network that looks to have been designed by the guy who put all the moguls on your favourite ski hill.
And sidewalks? Well, I guess you’d have to walk them to know them, but if you thought all those orange markings on new sidewalks was the town gearing up for Halloween, you’d be mistaken and perhaps disappointed. These are, rather, sidewalks installed by one of Renfrew’s go-to construction outfits, painted orange here, there, and everywhere to alert residents to tripping hazards or dramatic changes in elevation that can rob a person of their status as a pedestrian and replace that with a status of being hurt and possibly even the plaintiff in a civil lawsuit.
Was it because people weren’t interested in roads and sidewalks, but holy cow would they ever come out if the topics were fountains and park benches? I can’t see this being the case because, well, I don’t know if there will be a structured town hall to cover those topics, or any other topics for that matter. That’s because the STH isn’t an exercise in transparency and openness. It’s an exercise in selective transparency and openness. In short, the Town of Renfrew will speak to you on subjects of its own choosing, which may not be what you want to talk about. In fact, the Town can toss in some vanilla subjects that require fewer smokescreens than others, are easier to prepare for, and have relatively easier answers readily available.
Was it because the mayor wasn’t there, so there was therefore no opportunity for citizens to crash the front of the room wanting selfies with him and his anachronistic chain of office? I actually feel kind of bad for the mayor because I have this nagging thing that the STH was something he was hoping to avoid for fear of the whole thing becoming a lightning rod of discontent leading to a police service call. Once those mayor groupies get going, it can be tough to get them back.
Maybe hundreds out there are in front of their computers as I write this, taking advantage of the generous offer from the Clerk’s department to submit written questions or comments after the fact, what with traffic into the downtown core being brutal and nobody wanting to navigate the throngs of other interested residents sure to gather for the event. And just so that it’s said, written questions and comments can be ignored just as thoroughly as spoken ones.
So, in any event, I do have a couple of questions.
Like, when’s the next one? And what will the topics be? And will we get to listen and watch a staff member reading from a slide-show again, just like they do at real council meetings?
Where in blazes was the treasurer? I’d think with money and costs and debt and then more money being talked about, that we’d at least have our chief and primary bean counter at the table. But sadly, no dice for the treasurer. I guess he doesn’t count on game day.
I have to say I’ve attended the odd meeting in my time, some of them important, most of them odd. But I can’t think of a time where I’d feel it appropriate to have my face glued to a computer screen while constituents ask questions and staffers and the reeve make replies. This would be the case of both the Clerk and CAO — Chief Administrative Officer — who both found the contents of their laptops far more interesting than anything going on around them. Is this just a case of some supreme multi-tasking, where a person does many things at once, none of them particularly well? Whatever it is, it’s not appropriate and stands as an affront to the people who showed up, all eight of them. Maybe the two senior staffers felt that such a low turnout didn’t trigger their very best efforts, but the reverse should be true, where you give your undivided attention to those who did show up, almost as a way of thanking them for making the effort so many others took a pass on.
I suppose one or the other would be taking meeting notes, and perhaps the other was the trigger-girl for Andrea Bishop’s slide show presentation. Admittedly, there’s a distinct need for note-taking, but we can always get some kid off the street to do the slide show just as nicely for two darts and a bad cup coffee.
I’ll be clear on this. When in a meeting, you must be invested in the meeting, and you must be present, body and mind. Your eyes are up and making contact with the eyes of questioners and responders. This is nothing more than a common and required courtesy. Eyes-up conveys interest and empathy. Eyes-down conveys disinterest, maybe even contempt. I’m not saying this was the intended message, but it’s the message nevertheless. The responsibility of communication lies with the communicator, not the audience. Hopefully town staff has the capacity to learn and embrace simple concepts such as these.
Was this meeting properly promoted? Or was this a case of just putting something on the town’s website and feeling that the day’s work is done? The old “if we build it they will come” sort of premise? That maybe by placing an OPEN sign in the window the town’s residents, ipso facto, will stampede to the opportunity?
Is this intentional or a benign oversight? Transparency and communication quality and veracity are two significant issues plaguing the folks over at Low Square. So if it’s the latter, get better, and if the former, well, there’s likely a time coming when that policy will be regretted profoundly.
I’m not an expert in roads and sidewalks, municipal procedure, or the ins-and-outs involved with awarding contracts to the same firms all the time. I hire people to do that for me.
Except the people “hired” for the job, through tax dollars, seem intent upon keeping me in the dark.
And so Tuesday’s Structured Town Hall, as constituted, came across as the proverbial dog and pony show.
Next time, at least, they might bring along the dogs and ponies.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 