Mayor

To view Gary Mooney’s All Candidate’s Survey, please click here.

Leadership is the central issue in this race for mayor. After expelling its County manager early on, council mostly floated aimlessly through the remainder of the term. What began as an illconsidered putsch of Shire Hall’s leading reformer, devolved into a sad, unfocused, undisciplined and uninspired period of drift. A cork bobbing on a roiling sea.

Shire Hall badly needs a mayor who will set the agenda—to work with their council colleagues to identify a workable number of priorities—and then get to work, knocking them off, in a methodical and orderly manner. It needs structure. Order.

In the absence of council leadership, it is senior staff who set the agenda and the timetable. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it is their job and duty to help chart the path forward. But they shouldn’t be doing this alone. These folks aren’t elected. They aren’t accountable to the electorate. Their focus is on managing risk and making sure bad things don’t happen. At best, this means small-ball, incremental improvements on the margins; at worst it discourages entrepreneurial and enterprising management and fosters an unchecked bloated bureaucracy.

Leadership and governance, however, means pushing boundaries, finding alternative solutions, trying new things. And making difficult choices. Mostly, however, it’s about promoting a vision of what your community is and can be, and then seeing it through.

It’s a role that was largely abandoned over the last term of council. The irony is that in looking to take back control, they let the reins slip entirely from their hands. County council has mostly been adrift since then. This must change.

Richard Whiten has been a pleasant revelation in this campaign. It is odd, and unfortunate, that his first foray into local politics was to seek the mayor’s job.

Whiten leans too heavily on overworn clichés. But when he gets to his point, he demonstrates a decent grasp of the issues and a down-to-earth approach. Refreshingly he is not inclined to give the political answer. Notably when asked last week by residents of Wellington on the Lake if he would consider a lower tax rate because they pay for snowplowing and other services in their community, Whiten was the only candidate to plainly reject the notion of a favoured tax rate for another class of property owner, noting that these residents use all the other roads and municipal services for which we all pay property taxes.

Yet, Whiten plainly lacks a robust understanding of the workings of Shire Hall. While some will see that as an asset, and he is likely to be a quick study—being mayor isn’t an entry level job. The next council leader will have to set a new tone early on in their mandate. This will require a deft hand and strong interpersonal skills. It is not clear that Whiten possesses the traits or aptitude needed to lead the transformation required around the council table.

Dianne O’Brien has been an amiable and diligent council representative over the past three terms. When circumstances demanded, she has been outspoken and a forceful advocate for her community. O’Brien has shown, too, that she won’t shrink from a fight—willing and eager to push back against the consensus when her heart and mind tell her it is the wrong way forward.

O’Brien performed well as deputy mayor earlier this year. That experience revealed her fondness and talent for the ceremonial aspects of the mayor’s job—cutting ribbons, public appearances and such.

Her grasp of the big policy issues, however, is suspect. So too is her commitment to preparation for meetings. The next council has the opportunity to mark an important inflection point, to throw off the small -ball approach—a leftover from when many existing councillors looked after a village or township—and to mature as a governing body.

Steve Ferguson had a solid, if low-key, first term as councillor for South Marysburgh. He worked hard on the fight to stop the wind project in his Ward, working with local groups, individuals in applying pressure upon the province. That fight was taken up on many, many fronts using a dizzying array of arguments and methods of persuasion. Ferguson has proven skilled at internalizing the array of issues and serving as a strong advocate for his community at council and with his provincial counterparts.

He has also demonstrated entrepreneurial talent in converting the County’s heritage from a virtue to a central plank in the County’s marketing appeal. Two Days about Yesterday has become an important celebration of the County’s story and marketplace of ideas about how this history can by used to drive economic opportunities. It is an important achievement.

His policy choices have been mixed. He has been inclined, on occasion, to bend too easily to the populist wave rather than principled argument. It is also unclear if he possesses the leadership attributes required to harness the talents and personal ambitions of his 13 colleagues. But neither has he accumulated enemies or conspicuously aligned himself with any factions around the council table that would risk hindering his leadership aspirations.

We base our endorsement on the hope that his leadership skills have been latent as a team player these past four years. For this job is more than simply encouraging consensus. A direction must be set. A course charted. Folks inside and out of Shire Hall are looking to be inspired. This community has vast opportunities as well as daunting challenges. The next council must take up the reins once again and lead.

We endorse Steve Ferguson.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca and corey@wellingtontimes.ca