Tag: town-council

STEVENSON CRESCENT

It started out as an Open House at the Information Booth on O’Brien Road.

It was an information session regarding Stevenson Crescent and the road work to be done there.  There were charts, diagrams, drawings and all the other public-facing accoutrements on display, with the town itself represented by Andrea Bishop, at the time a manager in the Shovels and Rakes department, and Hannah MacMillan, the communications manager.  A third individual, I assume from the engineering company, was also present.  Being the only member of the public there at the time, it was kind of awkward, but the three representatives were only too happy to provide details and explanations as part of the Open House.

I’m not an engineer, nor am I an individual particularly concerned with road work here or anywhere else in town, but I think that night represents the top of the mountain for a project that, on paper anyways, looked like a slam dunk.

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COUNCILLOR ADVOCATES FOR HOME OWNERS

It’s late in the third period and your team is down by three goals.  Or it’s the seventh inning, and the boys are down by four, your starter has been knocked out of the game, and your best player swinging the hottest bat was injured back in the third, yet remains in the game, albeit hobbled and a shadow of his regular self.

You’re at a Renfrew Town Council meeting, your eyes are stinging, and you’re questioning all the concepts of good governance you’ve ever learned and experienced.  You’re two-and-a-half hours into the meeting, and you’re convinced that if you stay any longer, it may become a police matter, or a health matter, or both.

So you leave the rink.  Shut off the television.  Gather your belongings and leave.

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JACKSON RESIGNS POSITION AS TREASURER

It certainly looks like Charlene Jackson is gone as Renfrew’s treasurer.

Earlier today, I was given a heads-up about a job posting on the employment site Indeed, where sure enough, there’s a posting for a position that sure sounds like the one she’s held down until just recently.

That posting appears below.

Budget deliberations were brutal, and there’s no time in a treasurer’s annual calendar where almost every road, every request, and every question lands squarely at your door as it does at budget time.

Also, Renfrew is in the middle of some bad times, especially money-wise, and that’s something that’s not going to change any time in the near future.

So I guess I’m saying that being the treasurer of an entity that teeters on the edge of financial ruin can’t be the easiest job in the world.

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NEPOTISM AT TOWN HALL?

Nepotism is generally regarded as the practice of hiring or favouring relatives over others.  It’s using personal influence, even power within an organization, to give a friend or family member a leg-up when it comes to an opportunity.

It happens everywhere.  It happens here.  And no matter what attempts are made, or lip-service offered, it’s something that’s awfully difficult to get rid of.  But that doesn’t mean we can’t try, or do our best to ensure it doesn’t become SOP, or standing operating procedure.

The staff of the Town of Renfrew is riddled with nepotism.  I’m sorry, but there it is, and there’s no point in running away from that fact.

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WHEN THE HOUSE FALLS DOWN

By God, they’re going to do something about the municipal garage, they’re just not quite sure what.  And they’re going to spend money on the place, but they’re not quite sure how much.  The place will exist in one form or another, just in what form, and for how long?

All of this formed the core of a discussion involving the long-dilapidated municipal garage, a structure in the midst of its slow, methodical march towards collapse and oblivion, hopefully with no town staff inside when it falls down around them.

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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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RENFREW’S IT DEBACLE

I guess there’s times in life where you just have to decide who it is you’d rather be sued by.

Imagine putting yourself in a position precarious enough that you can clearly see that, no matter what you do, somebody’s going to come at you with civil litigation.

Then, and simply for the point of making an argument, what if you were to put the corporation you work for in that precarious position?

At least to me, and I’m often alone in my thinking, none of anything above strikes me as good business, personal, corporate, or anything in between.

Getting sued, one way or another, is generally an indicator that something’s gone wrong, that somebody or group of somebodies messed up, that a grievance ensued, a grievance whose only remedy is cash.

The Town of Renfrew has signed an Information Technology (IT) service-provision contract with a company called OnServe, who by all accounts is a straight-up legitimate choice for the job had the award not been called into question, not by anything they did or might have done, but rather for the potentially and possibly fatally-flawed process that was utilized by town staff in awarding the contract in the first place.

That was a three-year contract worth approximately $85,000/year, which roughly extends out to $235,000 over the course of the deal.

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IT CONTRACT AWARD UNDER SCRUTINY?

The agenda is out for Tuesday’s Renfrew Town Council Meeting and I didn’t get to the bottom of the first page of the thing before I saw something that made my political radar start to ping.

A certain Ian McFarlane will be making a deputation at the beginning of the meeting, and for ten minutes or less he’ll be speaking on something having to do with the procurement of IT services for the town.

At an earlier meeting back in December, a staff recommendation to give a tendered contract to OnServe was shot down by council since, as councillor Kyle Cybulski said, “I don’t know what it is that I’m voting for.”

So, as is the case for most things that are of high interest, it was resolved that the whole thing would be hashed out in-camera, behind the closed doors they love get behind when there’s any chance that somebody might end up looking stupid or appear to have done something not exactly according to Hoyle.

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INTEGRITY COMMISSIONER REPORT

I’m going to hate writing this.

Mostly because it will fly in the face of what everyone else likely thinks.  It’s not like I’m looking to be contrary for the sake of being contrary.  And I don’t do it lightly.

This has been percolating in my mind for 36 hours now, and I know I could have left it alone and see it wash downstream, but then again, I also knew I couldn’t.

No offence intended towards anyone.

Tuesday night, Integrity Commissioner Tony Fleming attended Council via Zoom and delivered his findings on two separate complaints filed under the Council Code of Conduct.  His presentation was professional and coherent, and everything you’d want to see from someone tasked with the resolution of these complaints.

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SERIES TO ILLUMINATE THE ISSUES, PROCEDURES, AND “MINUTIAE” OF A TOWN COUNCIL MEETING.

I don’t know how many folks tune into municipal council meetings, either live or taped, on the town’s YouTube channel.  I do know, if the last meeting was a fair indicator, how many attend the session in-person.  Or rather, how few.

I would completely understand why John and Jane Citizen would feel inclined to find something, anything else to do rather than to take in two-plus hours of paint-scraping minutiae that can be the norm in any gathering of local democracy, both here and elsewhere.  I feel bad for the primary participants, both political and administrative, who would have to further endure a closed meeting taking place after the open one, if that were to be the case.

Before moving forward, those opening paragraphs are in no way a criticism of the people or the process.  Democracy can be a messy beast, and often it’s in that very minutiae where the key truths lay, those little golden nuggets of information that allow them, the primary participants, and us, the adoring public, to fully understand an issue, good or bad, up or down, left or right.

As well, the very nature of Renfrew Town Council is dramatically different from the norm, in that four of the six town staff participants are new to their roles, all having the prefix “acting” in front of their formal titles.  Add this to the fact that all four town councillors present at the meeting are first-term representatives, with only the mayor being an incumbent, just not as mayor.  Two others, a reeve and another councillor, have varying degrees of experience, but weren’t there.

It’s only fair to say that all of these people, new, acting, re-purposed, and absent, have a pretty lousy job in front of them, especially given what they inherited from the previous administration, political and staff.  These folks were given the most challenging hand I believe I’ve ever seen at any level of government, a hand with absolutely no face-cards and completely devoid of trump.  A hand that, had they had a chance to get a quick peek at it in advance, might reasonably have led them to stay off the ballot and let somebody else deal with it all.  I, for one, am glad they’re there.  It’s been a tough ride, and likely not to get any smoother.  I fully appreciate their efforts.

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