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An unfortunate decision
01 February 2011
Last night Collingwood Council made a decision that will fundamentally change the way council works with the public, tilt the axis of policy making away from council to staff, and further isolate council from residents.
Based solely on a staff recommendation (from a report that council did not request), five committees were dissolved without a chance for any of them to comment publicly on the process, and without the majority of this council even having sat on any of them to be able to assess their value to the community.
I was extremely disappointed by the vote. It was, I believe, the single worst policy decision I've seen in the past seven years.
In my eyes, council abdicated some of its responsibilities and much of its authority. The committees we lost were affordable housing, physician retention, parking, human resources and sustainability. There will be no one at the table who sits on them, who can advocate for them, or champion their causes. Staff will deal with those issues, and determine the policy for those areas, instead.
Only Deputy Mayor Lloyd and I voted against gutting the committee structure. I could not even get it deferred for a year so council could get some experience on the committees it was willing to abandon.
I am still too angry to write calmly about this decision, so I'll leave it at that and follow up later.
Based solely on a staff recommendation (from a report that council did not request), five committees were dissolved without a chance for any of them to comment publicly on the process, and without the majority of this council even having sat on any of them to be able to assess their value to the community.
I was extremely disappointed by the vote. It was, I believe, the single worst policy decision I've seen in the past seven years.
In my eyes, council abdicated some of its responsibilities and much of its authority. The committees we lost were affordable housing, physician retention, parking, human resources and sustainability. There will be no one at the table who sits on them, who can advocate for them, or champion their causes. Staff will deal with those issues, and determine the policy for those areas, instead.
Only Deputy Mayor Lloyd and I voted against gutting the committee structure. I could not even get it deferred for a year so council could get some experience on the committees it was willing to abandon.
I am still too angry to write calmly about this decision, so I'll leave it at that and follow up later.
