By John Francis
You Can’t Just Tell Them You Need Money
About ten years ago, during a discussion about improvements that were needed at the arena, Mayor Milt McIver offered some insights to the new members of council. He’s had to do that a lot — there have been at least two rookie council members on four of the last five councils.
The discussion had come around to the dauntingly large cost of any renovation at the arena and the dauntingly small municipal budget it would have to come out of.
Then we would need to get financial assistance from the province and the feds, one of the new councillors said. The mayor agreed wholeheartedly but pointed out that it’s more complicated than that.
You can’t just tell them you need money, he explained. Everybody needs money. You have to tell them how their contribution will benefit the community into the future, how it will trigger economic development. If there’s a grant program in place, you have to tell them how perfectly your project fits their grant criteria, which may involve re-thinking the project to make it fit the current grant program.
“And it should be shovel-ready,” then-CAO Bill Jones chimed in. It’s always good to have a couple of projects shovel-ready because grant programs sometimes have short time windows and you need to be ready.
Thanks, Milt. Thanks, Bill.
Regular readers of this space will have heard these ideas many times. That’s where I got them.
Administrations Thrive When They Have Reports to Follow
I have often wondered what it must be like, working for a government — how concerned are civil servants at election time? Do they worry that they will be required to abruptly sail off in an entirely different direction?
For example, how do employees at my beloved CBC Radio feel about the impending election of CBC-hating Pierre Poilievre?
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The same kind of question probably applies at the municipal level. I’ve never asked — that would be tactless even by my relaxed standards — but it would have to be something they would think about, wouldn’t it?
But on a pretty much daily basis, staff have to make decisions, small and large about what Council wants them to do. This is a lot more fraught than you’d think. Staff are given a budget and a mandate. But in most cases, the expected outcomes are described in only the vaguest of terms. And it’s not like they can ask Council how they should approach something. Council only meets twice a month and their agenda is already full. And you can’t ask the individual councillors for input — that’s pretty much forbidden. (It has to be, otherwise different councillors would be instructing staff to undertake their pet projects…). So staff have to sort of figure it out for themselves.
Listening to a dozen years of meetings involving four different councils, I am amazed at how efficiently our municipality runs, given the often cryptic instructions staff get from council in the form of motions and bylaws.
But how much of their time do they spend wondering precisely what council meant by a given motion? Is this really an issue or am I just making things too complicated?
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I hear a lot of people complaining about how taxpayers’ money is wasted on consultants. We’re already paying staff salaries, the argument continues; why couldn’t they do it themselves? This has a nice ring to it until you unpack it.
For starters, staff recommendations are always open to accusations of self interest whereas with consultant reports that’s not an issue. And many reports require specialized skills (engineering, law etc). For a small municipality, it’s generally cheaper to rent those skills from a consultant when they are needed than to “on-board” those skills and pay for them twelve months a year.
At a recent MNBP council meeting, a council member queried the need for hiring a consultant. “Administrations thrive when they have reports to follow,” CAO Peggy Van Mierlo-West replied.
Thanks, Peggy.
(Image of a thought balloon in which a light suddenly goes on). You’ll probably hear that idea a lot in this space.
Rolling Two Ideas Together
Deputy Mayor Rod Anderson’s recent suggestion that we renegotiate our financial relationship with Bruce County rolls these two ideas together.
He didn’t just complain that we need money. He suggested we lay out precisely how Bruce County is short-changing MNBP and precisely how it must make amends going forward.
Council agreed and further agreed to hire a consultant to make sure the municipality’s request dovetails perfectly with the county’s mandate. Give them a report to follow.
Cross your fingers. I like where this is going.
