Comment
Talking trucks
Council meets as a committee just once in July and once in August. It meets twice a month through the rest of the year. Committee of the whole is where our municipal representatives gather to dig into the issues, challenges and opportunities pressing against this community. It is where they can spend a little longer listening to experts, agencies and residents. At committee of the whole any resident can go to the microphone and talk about anything on the meeting agenda for three minutes.
Ties are gone, sleeves are rolled up and the hard work of governing is conducted over long meetings. That’s the idea.
Last week’s committee of the whole meeting was allotted an hour. The meeting was called for 9:30 a.m. At 10:30 a.m. they were scheduled for a training and education session.
Three deputations. Nine agenda items. One hour.
Council made it through the agenda. It took about two hours.
Forty-five of those 120 minutes were spent talking about trucks that go home with staff. Yet again. In fairness, Shire Hall staff put the item onto the agenda. Like red meat into the shark tank. Forty-five minutes of ferocious roiling, pulling and chewing. They are an easily distracted bunch.
Personal use of County trucks is an especially irresistable to some council members. It’s because they hear it from residents.
Someone sees a pickup with a County logo at the Home Depot. They call their councillor. They notice someone leaving the movie theatre and get in a County truck. They call their councillor. Then about once a year, it all gets poured out at the council table. Over and over again.
The County permits its road manager, its fire chief, deputy fire chief as well as bylaw and canine enforcement officers to take their vehicles home. That’s fewer than 10 folks. Each of these individuals may be called to duty at any hour and any day. It’s part of their job. Four other municipal employees—roads and waterworks— are permitted to bring County vehicles home, but only when they are on call.
A water main breaks in Consecon at 2 a.m. We ask folks to roll out of bed and get to the scene quickly to assess the damage and make preparations for the repair. Do we really need to insist that they first drive to Picton, change vehicles, then drive to the scene? It seems small-minded— because it is.
Council governs a business that will spend $57 million this year. Yet it continues to immerse itself in the small-ball issues.
At the outside limit, the financial exposure of enabling a dozen on-call staff to take County vehicles home is likely measured in the hundreds of dollars.
Yet some councillors can’t help themselves. Because this is what they hear on the street or in the coffee shop. So they repeat it at council. It is a misunderstanding of their role.
They know, or they should know, that enabling some vehicles to go home is necessary for the efficient and effective delivery of services. They know, too, it is surely immaterial to County’s finances. Are there abuses? Possibly, perhaps likely. But it is management’s headache, not theirs.
They worry more about the way it looks, rather than the way it is. Like puppets, they jump when a constituent pulls this particular string. It is an unhealthy relationship.
Here’s the thing: The conversation can go both ways. Council members might use these opportunities with residents to explain why it is necessary for trucks to go home—and how it likely saves tax dollars.
Perhaps they can go further. Perhaps council members could use these opportunities to engage with residents on more meaningful issues in our community—roads, bridges, waterworks and affordable housing. Or the insidious oppression by the provincial government, in every aspect of municipal business.
Trucks are easier. Less complicated.
In the meantime, we have hundreds of miles of roads that will decay faster than we can fix them. Yet we spend $750,000 uselessly on Union Road. We have a waterworks system whose costs are spiralling out of control. Yet we will spend another $750,000 on replacing household water meters—on a system that derives most of its revenue from fixed charges. We have a rapidly expanding service economy with fewer places for workers to live, and without a plan about what to do about it.
It is not as though they don’t have real issues to discuss at committee of the whole. It’s that they prefer to talk about a few trucks.
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