Tag: local-government

RENFREW TOWN COUNCIL MEETING 10/12/24: SCOUTING REPORT

A lot of times you get what you pay for, and then sometimes you just don’t.

Some scouting report this is going to be, what with no high human drama to report on, no scandalous utterances, no gotcha moments, no fisticuffs like we see in some legislative gatherings.

Just business.  Present/discuss/vote/table/next.  Like I said, just business.

Coulda just stayed at home and watched some hoops on the tube.

Still, though, I’m glad I didn’t.

It’s not like I know everything about everything, and showing up to a Renfrew Town Council is an education of sorts, something I mean earnestly.  Democracy is a complex beast, and one of those things that seems to be viewed from a lot of different perspectives.  Braving freezing rain, like everyone else present did, is something one has to consider doing if one wants to truly understand, not just the issues and policies, but the mechanics and procedures of local democracy at work.

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RENFREW TOWN COUNCIL: MEETING PREVIEW 10/12/24

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.

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TOWN COUNCIL AND CLOSED SESSIONS. THE RULE RATHER THAN THE EXCEPTION.

I don’t think I’ve seen Renfrew Town Council at its best.  I don’t know if it has one.

So far as I’ve been able to determine from a first-hand point of view, there is no best to be had, unless they really crank it up behind closed doors, where they kick everyone out of the room so that they can talk about the real stuff, the stuff that people want answers to.  I can only assume they’re talking about important things in there, but how would I know?  As I said, I, and anyone else present, have been shown the door.  Only the so-called primary actors remain, the inner circle, the sanctum, the privileged few.  The ones who matter.

The foxes slamming the door of the henhouse once inside.

After close to three hours of the eyeball-bleeding, public-facing facade of “openness and transparency,” this council will often go into closed session.  Top secret, hush-hush and all that.

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WHEN THE DOGS AND PONIES ARE RUNNING THE SHOW

The circus comes to town every couple of weeks when Town Council has its regularly scheduled dog-and-pony-show exercise that passes itself off as municipal democracy in action.  And despite everyone performing their roles, with varying degrees of success, the production is made up seemingly of a council rubber-stamping whatever the administrative side of things wants it to rubber stamp.  Mind you, a couple of councillors will periodically raise objections to this, but will often get out-voted if they raise their concerns to the level of making a motion

That’s because here in Renfrew, we have what looks to be a chimera of democracy in play.  

Elected councillors are flummoxed by redundant and poorly organized agenda briefing documents, almost always numbering over a hundred pages, two-hundred pages, and often more.  This is how administration does it, firing smoke grenades to obfuscate things enough that councillors routinely pass what’s put in front of them because, as some have said, they trust the department heads to manage their departments with effectiveness and due diligence.

Sort of like the last council did.  

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PLACING BETS ON TOWN COUNCIL

I’m not a betting man.  If I was I’d be a poor betting man.

I know betting’s all the rage now, especially with how easy it is, using your phone and, hell, even being able to place in-game bets.  Even Wayne Gretzky is all over it, a guy who is right up there with Tim Hortons and their Roll-Up-The-Rim contest in terms of Canadian identity and popularity.

Money lines, point spreads, over-under, parlay bets, teasers and props, middle, future, and live bets, there’s no shortage of ways to get fabulously rich, or if you’re me, fabulously poor.

Luckily for me, I don’t have the kind of money to engage in this activity.  Losing a single $5 bet would have me in apocalyptic circumstances, so I stay away.  I don’t even buy Lotto 649 anymore because I feel it’s too risky.

That said, I know others absolutely love the action, and are willing to place money on the most trivial of things, mostly in the world of sports.  But sports betting has it’s drawbacks, especially if players, coaches, officials, etc go to the dark side to influence how a game goes, or how much court-time a player gets, or ice-time, or at-bats, or carries, etc.  

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TRANSPARENCY AND STANDARDS: WHO MAKES THE CALL?

At first, I thought it was just me.

I had encountered something that was increasingly frustrating about attempting to get some simple questions answered from anyone associated with Renfrew’s municipal government.  Frustrating, and almost conspiratorial, although that word might be a bit of an over-reach, since my little local conspiracy doesn’t involve pizza shops, the deep state, or the World Economic Forum.  Nevertheless, when you reach out to both political and administrative types within the organization, and you are universally ignored, then it does lend itself to the notion that there is some form of organized obstruction at play.  I’ve now backed off that initial suspicion, mostly because I’ve seen all the actors in action, and now believe that any organized effort in that, or seemingly any other direction, would be simply beyond their scope of capabilities.

When I went over the materials for last Tuesday’s council meeting, I happened upon an item listed under correspondence.  That item featured an email chain of back-and-forth between a local citizen and senior administrative staff.  And it was a carbon copy, albeit featuring different issues, of what I had just witnessed for myself when I had made my own enquiries.  Even the staff responses to the citizen were virtually identical, with a boilerplate response modified to fit the circumstances of the issue and the person requesting the information.

In a small way, I felt better, knowing that it wasn’t personal.   Bad guys would say that in the movies before killing a guy, that it wasn’t personal, it was just business, which to me always seemed like it would be pretty personal for the guy about to get two behind the ear.  Like small comfort there.  As in  hearing that, the guy’s gonna say “Oh, okay.  Completely understand.  What a relief.  Carry on.”

Still, when you are comprehensively ignored, knowing you’re not the only one brings no significant measure of comfort.

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A-REEVE-ADERCI: ELIMINATION OF REEVE POSITION AND IMPACT ON LOCAL GOVERNANCE

Sometimes you have to do the little jobs right in order to get the big jobs.  And then sometimes you don’t.

Peter Emon is off and running as a candidate for the chair of Warden of Renfrew County, a chair he’s sat in several times now, a chair where the memory foam makes it virtually impossible for anyone else to sit there comfortably.

He does this while his chair on Renfrew town council sits idle and vacant, where periodically the roller function is engaged when the cleaners pass through the chamber on their regular rounds.

Normally, I guess I’d feel proud that one of our own — well, tenuously anyway — gets selected to occupy the top spot on the top-tier of local government, that being Renfrew County Council. Never mind the fact that he’s been warden several times over the years, originally as a mayor from Greater Madawaska and now as the reeve of Renfrew.

And there’s the thing right there, that reeve of Renfrew thing.

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RENFREW TOWN COUNCIL MEETING: SCOUTING REPORT

I said it before and I’ll say it again.

Attending a local council meeting can be a marathon of eye-glazing procedural this-and-that, and it can be a real challenge to whatever you drink for coffee, as no level of caffeine can fully protect you from the head-nodding minutiae these affairs can showcase. That said, there is absolutely no substitute for attending in person.

And then being present with your attention.

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MA-TE-WAY LEASE INFORMATION REQUEST MET WITH SILENCE

Initially, I had no reason to be suspicious of anything, nor am I suggesting that there would be anything to be suspicious about.

I was simply asking a question, a question I felt entitled to ask, one that would be of some interest to people who pay their property taxes in Renfrew, Ontario.

It’s like standard journalism, the kind that existed before we were left with empty shells purporting to cover “news” at a local level.  The kind of stuff that goes beyond the old  “cat stuck in tree” slosh.  Something that’s maybe more than a short paragraph in length.

But this isn’t about local journalism, that would be a whole other story in its own right.  This is about a simple request for information that has been met with opposition, deflection, institutional ambiguity, and just good-old-fashioned bewilderment.  It’s like they have no idea how to respond. 

So they won’t.

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NEW COUNCIL FINDS SPOILED SANDWICH IN THE FRIDGE

It’s late October, 2022.

It’s the morning after an election win for five candidates who have successfully been selected as councillors for the Town of Renfrew.  Four of them are new to this, Councillors Dick, Cybulski, Legris, and McDonald.  The fifth, Councillor McWhirter, has served on council in the past, but this morning I’m describing here must still feel pretty good for him too.

There’s nothing quite as exhilarating as standing for office, or any other election-based position, and coming out the other end of it on top.  There’s a bit of a high attached to it.  And excitement.  Perhaps even a little bit of anxiety now that you’ve gone and put your name out there, and then won.  You’re happy, people are happy for you, your family is super happy, and proud on top of that.  It’s a cool experience.

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