HR ISSUE RESOLVED

If I’m not mistaken, there appears to be some sort of resolution to the HR Liaison issue that’s proven to be a difficult piece of policy-making for Renfrew Town Council.

It appears that Council is willing to move forward with the idea of an elected councillor being involved in the Stage 3 grievance protocol, meaning that when an employee grievance reaches that stage, a councillor will be present representing the town. In fact, it appears that Council as a whole actually put forward the idea of three councillors possibly being present as part of this process, which may well be a little bit of overkill, but if it’s staff accountability we’re trying to ensure here, then we’ll certainly get more of our money’s worth. What may elude a single councillor could not possibly get by three of them.

For the record, Stage 1 of the grievance process involves an employee attempting to reconcile the issue at hand with their immediate supervisor. Stage 2 involves filing a grievance and having the discussion over the issue elevated to include the Director of the department involved, along with the immediate supervisor. At Stage 2 there’s likely to be union representation in support of the employee involved. It’s Stage 3 where Council got hung up on who represents the town.

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March 28, 2025

SPEAKING TO BE UNDERSTOOD

I don’t know if it’s because of the impending budget, or if it’s merely a matter of coincidence, but Renfrew Town Council meetings are becoming longer and longer, marathons really, with last night’s gathering consuming five and a half hours before going into closed session, which is pretty wild given the fact that I left at about 11:15 PM. That means the closed session extended beyond that, which has me feeling entirely sympathetic to the plight of a local municipal politician and municipal administrators.

That the agenda was chock-full was evident from the 400-plus pages of agenda materials released last Friday. Also last Friday, a Renfrew staffer gave me a bit of heads-up that Tuesday’s meeting was going to be on the brutal side in terms of length. I remember laughing somewhat at that piece of fore-knowledge, because I’ve sat through a lot of sessions of people hot air and gassing for hours at a time, so I felt I was up to the task.

But for the love of God, almost six hours? And again, that’s six hours before being chased out of the room so they could talk among themselves. You can throw a hood over a guy’s head and waterboard him all day and it would be like a light swim compared to this exercise in democracy, both time-wise and often content-wise. More meetings like this one may trigger a Geneva Convention investigation.

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March 27, 2025

COUNCIL EXHIBITING HR PERPLEXION

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.

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March 24, 2025

A FOX FOR THE FIVE

Hero.

A person recognized, admired, and idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities.

Correctly, a hero doesn’t have to be someone who shows up guns-blazing at a critical moment to save the day. Nor does it have to be the person that rescues the damsel in distress that somebody tied to the railway tracks, if that kind of thing actually happens, especially in light of rail cutbacks.

A hero can be anyone. A hero can be you.

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March 18, 2025

HR LIASON: A PIÑATA THAT ISN’T THERE

Oh my God.

I can’t think of anything better to really say as the HR Liaison issue came up a third time, and for a third time it was like wading in a pool full of absolute muck.

I’ve never encountered brick-think on such a scale as I witnessed Tuesday night at the Renfrew Town Council meeting.

These people seemingly have a huge degree of difficulty when it comes to determining how Stage 3 grievances are to be heard. It’s not the most complicated of things, but you’d never know it from sitting in this room for what seems like hours talking about the same thing over and over and over again, all the while cancelling out options with votes as the back-and-forth debate rages, and heads shake.

All of the very worst things that come to mind when criticizing Council come to the forefront on this particular issue. Add to that the usual ambiguity and imperfection from certain staff by way of explanations that don’t address the question.

It’s like watching a blind-folded kid swinging wildly at a piñata, only there’s no piñata. Or if you prefer, taking a bunch of cats for a walk without a leash. Walking through a cornfield?

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March 12, 2025

COUNCIL TO PICK UP COY SLACK FROM CHAMBER

My congratulations in advance to the winner of this year’s Citizen of the Year Award.

Whoever it may turn out to be, the selection for such a prestigious award, and I mean that, is reflective of the fact that you’ve had a tremendous positive impact in your community, and for your community. And unlike hockey rinks where you can just “buy” your name recognition, the Citizen of the Year accolade is awarded by others, hopefully objective others, who see and witness the impact of your efforts on things, movements, and people.

It represents positive recognition to a person who wasn’t hell bent on getting the recognition in the first place. And so, in that sense, it’s a terrific and legitimate honour.

But it won’t have the stamp of approval from the local Chamber of Commerce.

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March 5, 2025

COUNCIL SCRAPS OVER HR COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIP

The background to this is fairly simple.

Council, until recently, would receive reports from the various committees and departments that undertook the business of the municipality. One of those committees was an HR Committee. The head of that committee would be part of any employee grievance process.

When Council transitioned to a Committee of the Whole format, those individual committees went by the wayside. As for human resources matters, Council still had an HR Liaison in place, but that person wasn’t formally designated as being the replacement for the “committee” that made up the town’s part of a grievance complaint. That’s a requirement in the collective agreement that exists between the town and its employees, and a requirement that’s not currently being fulfilled after the disbanding of the committee structure.

Staff recommended that, to close this gap, a motion was needed designating what this grievance team might look like, and several options were tendered to Council, and one of those options was recommended.

In my opinion, the staff recommendation was flawed in the first place.

It may have cemented or concretized the protocol as it currently exists, but that’s not a good enough reason to hammer forward with it.

I’m talking, again, about what form of council/staff representation takes the reins in a human resources situation involving a contract grievance brought forward by an employee.

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March 4, 2025

RECORDED VOTES THE NEW NORMAL?

Renfrew Clerk Carolynn Errett is going to find herself busier than she currently is.

During the last Renfrew Town Council meeting, no fewer than three councillors requested recorded votes. Usually votes sail past without this technicality, but when they do, anyone beating around the bushes for voting records of politicians would be stymied by the fact that the vote would be recorded as passed or defeated, and the vote count, but not the names of the individual councillors, nor the names of the mayor or reeve, would be attached to those votes.

It appears the campaign machines of three councillors have cranked up, and the sage advisors behind those campaigns have advised their boys to request recorded votes with names attached.

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March 3, 2025

A MUNICIPAL EXERCISE IN BLAME SHARING

The Town of Renfrew wants your input.

Actually, they want your complicity.

The town is pumping a survey of theirs where they hope to get some direction on where to go as they approach the time when they have to do The Big Reveal, also known as the 2025 Municipal Budget.

It’s not a document they’re overly excited about, mostly because it’s going to be brutal on you, Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer of Renfrew, Ontario, the people who foot the bill and the people who will be most angry when their tax bill shows up in the mail.

The very people who will be most angry at…them.

They’re going to present this as an example of their commitment to openness and transparency, to demonstrate to you how sensitive they are to your feedback, how they’ve discovered the advantages and benefits of being up-front with the people they provide services for and to.

Sure it is.

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February 24, 2025

RUNNING FOR MAYOR

Who would want to be the mayor of Renfrew?

Other than perennial candidate Cal Scott, what person would have the willingness to take on a thankless position at the head of a table of squabbling councillors and overly-confident and assertive administrative types?

Is it the base salary of $20,425? Add committee and board assignment remuneration to this base salary, but where does that get you?

As recently as 2022, the mayor landed some $42,400, so one could maybe be forgiven for assuming that the mayor’s position took an almost twenty grand haircut in the two years since.

My point here is that it can’t be for the cash, at least not in 2025. Maybe in 2022, when it was all rainbows and cherry blossoms, but not now. At least I don’t think so.

Trying to get information on this sort of thing is like sitting in the dentist’s chair while they take multipole measurements of each tooth in your mouth while everyone in the room gets older. Because of this, I’m going to take the $42,400 number as my working number, and to hell with what the internet says.

So, after all that, my question remains, who would want to be mayor of this place? Is just over forty grand enough money for the self-abuse that surely follows everyone who wears the chain of office? And if it’s not, how much salary would be enough?

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February 18, 2025