Big plans

Council sets goals

If only we had a plan. The County’s chief manager has a set of goals he must work toward achieving. Municipal departments have to-do lists to which they are held accountable. But council drifts from meeting to meeting, occasionally veering into crisis, without a roadmap, guiding principles or apparent aim. No direction, no focus, no pining for a destination. Council is, for the most part, content to bob on the waves of whatever issue that rolls before it.

That’s changing. Last fall, after a year had slipped by in this term of council with nary an achievement he could point to, Mayor Robert Quaiff did what elected folks do—he called in the consultants. Lauren Millier of MDB Insight was summoned to provide, well, her insight. Her firm had recently worked to re-establish order and purpose to the municipality’s economic development efforts. Council was pleased how well that file, under Neil Carbone’s leadership, had steered itself out of a swamp of mistrust into a viable and productive catalyst to community and economic growth in Prince Edward County.

Having put order into one department at Shire Hall, Millier and her firm were assigned the task to do the same for council. Remember that early in 2015, council dismissed its chief administrative officer, Merlin Dewing. At the time, Quaiff said the County manager’s “leadership approach no longer aligned with the vision of the current council.”

Rightly or wrongly, Dewing had charted a clear course for the County. In a few short years, he had also managed to move the business of the municipality a long way toward the goals he laid out. Some didn’t like it. He had made many folks unhappy and uncomfortable—inside and outside Shire Hall.

But when he was gone, it was clear council had no vision, no plan, beyond sacking its manager.

So last November, Millier’s firm was hired to prepare a Corporate Strategic Plan. It would listen, write an outline, test ideas and concepts, refine the Plan and spell out a method to roll it out. It spent much of the winter and spring on the assignment.

Late in June, Millier presented the plan—complete with statements of mission, vision and corporate values. The full report can be found by clicking here.

While there were no comments at the time, some councillors have since become uneasy with some of the wording. Ameliasburgh councillor Janice Maynard says the Strategic Plan may present a picture of an agriculture-based community but she fears it will prod council to fork money into urban areas.

“This document is woefully inadequate in addressing rural and agriculture services,” asserted Maynard.

Athol councillor Jamie Forrester zeroed in on the Corporate Work Plan—a list of specific goals assigned by years remaining in this term of council. He was troubled by a commitment in the work plan for council to promote value-added agriculture and agritourism.

Forrester wanted either the reference to “valueadded” deleted, so as not to confine council’s efforts in a way that, he suggested, has no meaning. Either that or he wanted the term “traditional agriculture” inserted.

Robert McAuley, head of engineering, development and works, cautioned against diluting the prescriptions described in the Work Plan.

“You want this document to be surgical in its precision,” said McAuley, suggesting that agriculture was well covered in the document. “You risk losing focus.”

Other council members complained that wording changes were coming very late in a months-long process.

“We’ve hired consultants, conducted public meetings, reviewed drafts and now that it’s done—we begin to pick it apart,” said Kevin Gale, Sophiasburgh councillor.

North Marysburgh councillor David Harrison was less bothered by the language around agriculture in the Strategic Plan. He argues that the Official Plan rewrite—ongoing currently—will play a much more significant role in protecting and supporting traditional agriculture in Prince Edward County.

Still, several council members weren’t satisfied.

“If council wants this wording to be strengthened, you can do so,” assured James Hepburn, chief administrative officer. “The devil will be in the details.”

So the word “traditional” was inserted as a qualifier to the description of agriculture in the Work Plan, part of the County’s nascent Corporate Strategic Plan.

Some council members were keen to get past the words on paper, to assemble behind closed doors and hammer out a common view of priorities and goals.

“We need a retreat to ensure we are all on the same page,” urged Gord Fox, Picton councillor. He worried that unravelling the Strategic Plan word-by-word would leave council more divided and wasting time. “We need to do this before budget.”

Mayor Robert Quaiff assured Fox and other council members that it is his intention to host a council retreat in September.

“I’ve been waiting for this document,” said Quaiff, asking his colleagues to endorse it. “We need it to go into that session.”

There was, oddly enough, no discussion about the second item under the Corporate Work Plan: prepare a longterm financial plan that provides funding strategies and adequate reserves while promoting stable taxes.

That will be some plan.