Orientation

Start early and come prepared. It’s good advice for many endeavours— but particularly apt for a new council member. Four years come and go quickly. The opportunity to do big, meaningful things is fleeting. The window for change will close sooner than you think.

This is because Shire Hall is a hard place to get things done (in fairness, this is undoubtedly true in varying degrees in all municipal governments). Everything takes longer—much longer than you imagine from the outside. Simple things require patience, energy, diligence and focus.

Consensus is hard to forge and may be undone by a deferral— for a study, a review, a report—to some indeterminate future. The energy for rapid resolution can dissipate easily before your eyes.

Then there is the structural imbalance— the folks at Shire Hall are wellpaid professionals—you are an underpaid council member. One of fourteen. Shire Hall controls the narrative. They write the reports, prepare the agendas and set priorities. They are there every day. You are there a few days each month.

The simple truth is that staff tell the story of Prince Edward County—your job is to approve the script. Perhaps suggest some notes. Either way the vote goes, it becomes your vote too.

Yes, there will likely be a strategy-setting session, perhaps a retreat. Such exercises, however, tend to drown in motherhood statements, impossibly vague goals and poorly understood notions of sustainability— financial and otherwise.

So come to your Council seat with a handful of well-considered ideas—things you hope to accomplish. Set the tone early. Or it will set you. By the time you recognize the invisible restraints limiting your influence, a couple of years will have evaporated. You are on the downward slope.

Understand that the early days of council- hood are designed to put you in a box. The training. Orientation. The manuals. The Municipal Act. Code of Conduct. Meeting rules and procedures. Each is necessary and fundamental for a governing body to function correctly and effectively. Yet, they are, nevertheless, form-fitting suits designed to encourage conformity.

You may have campaigned to deliver on a set of ideas—on a way of doing business differently. You were alone then. Speaking face-to-face with residents. You made commitments. It was you going door to door.

Now you are part of a larger whole. You are being welcomed into a select club. The price of admittance, however, is that you must now suppress your voice in favour of the greater good of the club. The thing that got you into this club is about to be trained out of you.

If you allow it, the first year of the term can be frittered away learning how to adjust your chair, the names of your fellow councillors and the rules around asking questions, and to whom they may be put.

So come prepared and start early.

Soon enough, Christmas will be here. Then a new budget. So be ready. Read last year’s budget. Understand the difference between operations and capital expenses. Waterworks and roads. Read the Chief Administrative Officer’s quarterly reports. (They are informative and highly readable.)

Learn the language of municipal finance. You will be asked to approve $75 million in spending in January or February. Don’t allow this to be a training exercise. It is a serious responsibility thrust upon you right out of the gate. Take it seriously.

Council veterans will sound light years more knowledgeable about the process. That is because they are. But that doesn’t mean you must cede the floor or bury your notions simply because it is all new. Become versant in the County’s finances—the pressure points, the tax levy, debt load, etc. Learn the language.

Resist the temptation to get caught up in the small stuff. It’s a trap. As long as Council is arguing over the worthiness of $500 to support this or that group or project, the clock is ticking on a time-limited review process. When the deadline comes, you will be asked for an up or down vote, whether you are ready or not. You will vote yes. To go along.

There are good reasons for these rules, practices and traditions. None of this is an argument for diminishing this order but, rather, ensuring new members prepare for it. The biggest mistake I’ve observed in new council members is the sense they can learn on the job.

Prepare now. Read voraciously. Write your priorities on a piece of paper. Stick it to your refrigerator. Check back in six months to see if you are shaping the story of Shire Hall, or if it is shaping you.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca