The Great Expansion

County government is big. It has expanded nearly five times since it was formed in 1998, as measured by the amount of taxes extracted from residents (and a few businesses). It grew bigger during Covid. It will get bigger this year and the next, and the years after that—its ambitions growing with each doubling of the tax haul.

But governments—especially the rapidly expanding kind—require a check on these ambitions. Do we really need to spend this much? What would it look like if we stopped providing certain services? What if we sold some (most) of the nearly 100 buildings slowly crumbling back into the earth? What if we matched spending to residents’ ability to pay?

Governments need a check, too, on the assumptions underlying the great expansion. Shire Hall is bulking up to serve an expected surge in population growth in this community. What if they don’t show up? Or, more likely, they displace the folks who have lived here all their lives? Who will pay the bill for all this extra waterworks capacity? Smoother roads? Bigger administration? How is this changing our community?

In all the planning and study, shouldn’t we could come up with a Plan B? Or, at the very least, an off-ramp? With clear and frequent exit signs?

Council is that check—or it is supposed to be. But it has struggled to contain the expansion and ambition of County government. The problem is structural. Too many big files, coming at them too quickly. Lacking a committee arrangement (eschewing a standing committee proposal again late last year), all 14 members must pore over reams of massive files. They may ask a couple of questions, but they must say yea or nay promptly—for another big file is coming right behind it.

Council has become ineffective in governing Shire Hall. The scale, scope and velocity of municipal business have swamped it. As local government becomes exponentially larger and more complex, effective scrutiny has broken down. They are good people in a bad arrangement.

Consider Council’s next few weeks.

Tomorrow, Council will hear a presentation— a summary of a 274-page study—recommending a near doubling of development charges (DCs) across the County. The proposal has enormous implications for every aspect of our community and our ability to pay for it. It outlines fresh capital spending of $150 million over 20 years. All of it predicated upon the County’s population growing by 10,000 new permanent residents in two decades. (To accept this premise, you must set aside the fact that the County’s population has barely budged over 130 years. It has never experienced the pace of growth anticipated in this study—or in any of the consulting economists’ projections.)

The DC plan adds thousands of dollars to the cost of a home in a community that no longer aspires to be affordable.

Council is in a tough spot. It needs time to consider the implications of its decisions— how it will shape this community this year and for decades into the future. It must consider the commitments they are making on behalf of future councils. It should hear from other stakeholders and folks with expertise in this community. In another level of government, such issues would be sent to a committee for this critical work.

But that won’t happen. The current arrangement won’t allow it. Besides, Council has too many other big files coming right on its heels. Most members will raise their hands, some albeit grudgingly, and Shire Hall will grow a couple of sizes bigger.

Also on the agenda this week is a plan to increase road spending exponentially—from about $7 million per year to more than $25 million—each and every year. It may mean adding a significant amount to your tax bill each and every year.

The report is good and necessary. It should be evidence of the impossibility of our predicament—too many roads, too few folks to pay for them. More likely, it will serve as a stepping stone to the next big expansion of our local government. For there is no problem too big that can’t be fixed by making residents pay more.

Soon after, Council will sit through a week of budget deliberations; operating, capital, waterworks, and an array of external agencies, including social services and the Conservation Authority. After three years of Covid, it will likely be a transformative budget read—punishingly large.

Council is overwhelmed. Too many big files. Too many community-changing files. All coming at them too quickly. They have neither the processes to cut these files into bite-sized chunks nor the inclination to trust their colleagues to burrow into them on their behalf and ask the questions required to govern effectively. A quiet room. A long list of questions. Experts, residents and stakeholders. And the time to reflect and consider their recommendations.

But Council is just too big and unwieldy—without ways or means to slow the velocity of files coming at it. Instead, we must witness a clumsy 14-legged race, each council member bound to the other, hobbled by the pace and agility of the slowest among them.

The net effect is that Shire Hall is swamping Council’s ability to govern the County effectively. It has become bystanders like the rest of us.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca