Comment
Into temptation
Municipal politicians must roll over at night and cry out for a divine hand to shield them from the howling press. From the grievance seekers. From the second-guessers. The backseat drivers. The allure must always be there. The gnawing desire to debate municipal business behind closed doors is surely ever-present. Life would be much easier and more efficient if residents, businesses, and reporters would just leave municipal politicians alone— to let them do their jobs—in private.
Accountability and transparency are brave words easily mouthed during an election campaign. Far harder to do when sitting around the horseshoe at Shire Hall. Livestream cameras are watching every twitch, recording every word. The temptation is greater on a municipal council or local board. Such tables don’t feature a structural opposition in the way senior levels of government do. There are no folks dedicated to asking questions, challenging the course of debate, or demanding that business be done out in the open—in the fresh air.
Lacking persistent internal backpressure, municipal councils, especially those allowed to seclude themselves frequently from public view, come to resemble a club rather than a serious deliberating body. Folks go along to get along. They come to believe it is for the best.
They learn to resent the peering eyes. The criticism. The questions. Closing the door becomes a means to silence the external noise. To think.
The County Affordable Housing Authority has come under withering criticism from this newspaper and other quarters in recent months. The Times was a vocal supporter of the arms-length housing agency when it was formed in 2017. This newspaper applauded its goals, its ambitions and prospects.
It didn’t work. Nearly a decade later, many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spilled. Vanishingly little has been achieved.
Current plans imagine the development of an eight-unit walk-up apartment block in Picton, of which only three will be offered at affordable rents, to be funded entirely by debt repaid over 45 years.
It is a bad plan. Interest on the mortgage effectively doubles the cost of the project. The municipality has no experience as a residential developer. It has no experience operating residential apartments—finding tenants, collecting rents, responding to complaints and maintenance issues. Worse, it has proven utterly incapable of attracting federal or provincial funding for its housing endeavours. It has failed at step one.
Taken together, municipal taxpayers are being asked to take on enormous risk—execution risk, operating risk and financial risk. All to create three apartments that may be classified as affordable, but—in real life— may still be out of reach for most folks.
There is no doubt the Housing Authority board means well, but it is devoid of the institutional support, skill set and experience required to get this project off the ground. In any other context, it would be chalked up to an honest effort—but a fail.
Last week, the board met for nearly three hours. Almost all of it—save for about 20 minutes—was spent behind closed doors. When it emerged, the board agreed to present its proposal to Council. What proposal? Terms? Details? None were provided in open session.
The Municipal Act allows councils and boards to go into closed session when the debate is about property transactions, trade secrets, financial dealings and/or ongoing negotiations.
The Clerk’s department reported that, given the board discussed municipal land, plans or positions around potential negotiations or information with potential monetary value, the board was indeed permitted to meet behind closed doors.
Technically, I am sure the Clerk’s office is correct. But a generous reading of the exceptions suggests the Housing Authority board may never see the light of day again—except to go into and out of closed session. Everything it talks about involves land, negotiation and monetary value.
The Clerk’s department ought not be the first line of defence against the abuse of closed sessions. Rather, it is up to members of council or local boards to police decisions to go dark. They must continually agitate for greater openness and transparency. Folks inside the room must ask why the doors are closed. Is it necessary? Or is it just easier?
Transparency isn’t a vague or nebulous virtue—it is the cornerstone of an institution’s credibility. If folks can’t see how the sausage is being made, they will assume it is full of sawdust and floor sweepings. The more the sausage-maker resists scrutiny, the greater the mistrust. The Affordable Housing board can’t afford to lose any more credibility.
Throw open the window and let daylight in.
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