If the Mayor’s commitment to open government was timed to start with the first monthly meeting of Council, then excluding the public from nearly half of the time allotted for council business sent a message that Rothesay’s Council isn’t quite ready to tackle this issue.
After the public was finally let into the Council meeting, the Mayor announced a grand-sounding “Mayor’s Special Committee on Open and Transparent Government”. Clearly the irony of this was lost on the brightly smiling Mayor.
The announcement was remarkably short on detail on how the committee would operate and what its authority and scope were. That is likely because it’s been placed on an exceedingly short leash, limited to answering two questions. First; “What does the public want to know?” Second, “How would they most like to receive the information?”
If this committee is going to spend an equal amount of time on each question, then it will waste at least half its mandate. If Council doesn’t already have a working answer to the first question then it is very clearly out of touch with constituents and the antics of the past four years.
As for that first question, the public should have access to information that it has a right to. So the more relevant starting point should have been, “How has the town performed in providing information required by the public?”
Based on at least one matter currently before the courts, town staff may have a view about right to information that is out of sync with what the law says it should make available
It isn’t surprising that performance of town staff doesn’t seem to be within the committee’s scope given that the memo outlining the committee’s mandate was probably written by the very staff whose actions are, by coincidence, under review by Justice Glennie this week. That case involves a report on a flooding issue that staff had refused to release to a homeowner for almost 6 years.
The case was dragged out, including through a year long Right to Information Commissioner’s investigation after which the Town failed to act on the Commissioner’s recommendation to release the report. The town’s actions likely gave the home owner no other viable recourse except to take the town to court. The report was finally released in the midst of the ensuing legal proceedings and after putting the unrepresented homeowners through an epic David and Goliath battle. The Mayor could have pointed to this case as ground zero in evaluating the Town’s performance. But of course, she has not.
If the Mayor’s Committee were to attend the hearing and initiate a discussion with the homeowners involved, they might get a firsthand appreciation of what some face when dealing with the Town of Rothesay. They would certainly get as much insight into what the public “wants” and what the courts see as a minimum in the flow of information from Council than from a staged Twitter exchange. That’s a pity, as a visit to Justice Glennie’s court on Friday would give the two committee members an insight they won’t receive otherwise.. Perhaps Council’s first policy development exercise deserves a fail if no one bothers to show up on Friday other than the Town’s lawyer.
But I digress… The Mayor did talk about openness and transparency last night. These are two distinctly different issues. “Open government” is about public engagement in the democratic processes of government. It is a two-way, iterative process. The objective of transparency is to enable accountability not to control spin. Accountability is more likely when the public has the knowledge of government operations in sufficient detail to hold them accountable for their decisions.
The two questions and the background memo from the town manager suggest to me that the committee doesn’t actually have a mandate to deal with the open government issue. Their questions are simply about communication and one way communication at that. The Mayor’s goal appears to be more about improving the town’s “messaging” than rising to the challenge of open and transparent government.
The memo proposing the “Mayor’s Special Committee” reinforces this as it outlines activities that would be the front end of an outbound public relations exercise. This simply isn’t scoped in a way that would allow for effective public policy to be developed. I wonder if we’ll eventually see a recommendation that entails hiring one of the PR firms suggested during the last Council’s mandate?
The problems Rothesay has stem from a lack of public trust and a frustration with a rampant attitude that the public is only entitled to the information the information holder wants them to have. These will not be solved by a committee without a mandate to investigate these underlying causes of public angst. Rothesay’s poor relations with residents are much more about values and ethics than they are about creating better spin.
Finally, a last comment, on the committee structure. A committee of two with input from a staff person does not foretell a process where multiple points of view and experience are intended to enrich the exercise. Councillor Mackay French will find that she will have to push hard not to be kneecapped by the limited mandate given to her by Mayor Grant.
I do have confidence that she will make best efforts in moving this issue forward. But the Councillor may find before this Friday that her remit is so constrained that “Openness and Transparency” may be elusive goals. Here’s hoping I’m wrong.