Councillor Pat Gallagher Jette’s final motion in the final meeting of this Council’s term will not make it into the Newspaper headlines. But it should have been front page news.

Her motion, which passed without debate, was a simple one. It required that when a Councillor asks to see a bill or statement of account covering any town spending, staff are to provide it.

The motion, seconded by Finance Committee chair Blair MacDonald, passed without a whimper from the Councillors who just last month pushed back hard on MacDonald’s efforts to have a more robust audit of Rothesay’s financial and procurement practises.

It goes to show that having to face the public during an election campaign can do wonders for open government.

Councillor Jette, while obviously pleased that her four year struggle to shed more light on town spending had finally met with some success, might well have been wondering what spending boondoggles might have been avoided if, at the end of the day, those responsible were held accountable for the cost.

This council motion would not have been necessary had Councillors like Jette been getting the information they needed to do a credible job of representing and informing taxpayers.

That no one else on Council spoke in support of the motion says a whole lot more about the attitudes of Jette’s other colleagues who are asking voters to trust them now for another four years. Without the information Jette has been asking for, Council has failed to keep taxpayers informed about how, where, and why they spend.

So kudos to Councillors Jette and MacDonald for taking Rothesay one step down the road toward greater transparency and with that, perhaps, more responsible spending by the next Council.