Thunder Bay’s
new City Council has been sworn in and the first meeting tonight will send
important signals on what the direction of the new council is as well as the
ability of new council members to work together and effectively make decisions. This is a process being repeated cross the
province as new municipal councils from Toronto to Dryden to Windsor begin
serving their terms.
Many often
feel the role of Council is to make decisions that do things – like boost the
city’s economy or cut costs. The reality
is that much of this can only be done indirectly. For example, the economic impact of City
Council is via its role in setting tax rates and tax policy as well as
providing strategic direction on what infrastructure and quality of life
investments can attract business. As for cutting costs, Council needs to follow
a process that involves its civil servants –administration - which administers
and delivers services.
True, City
Council approves all decisions but it is only after strategic direction is provided and the
alternatives have been produced and analyzed by the administration. If City Council wants to reduce expenditure
growth, it is not their role to decide what areas should be cut or restrained,
it is their role to select the target expenditure level or the desire to reduce
spending and then ask administration for their options on how to achieve
it. Having set the policy direction,
City Council then decides on the options provided by administration to pursue
in meeting the target. In brief, the
role of City Council is to select targets and then make decisions to meet those
targets based on the instruments provided by their civil servants.
Of course,
the automatic response to any such pontificating on the part of observers like myself
is that I am not a member of Council and if I feel I know so much I should walk
the walk and run for office. While I appreciate that elected office is an important calling and a tough job, my response
to that is on several levels. First, you should always be careful what you wish
for. Second, such a retort on the part of any politician is really designed to
stifle debate because given the number of people expressing opinions, how can
we all run for office and all serve on Council or as an MP? Third, as engaged
citizens and taxpayers we should contribute to debate and discussion and we all have skills that can serve the public in different way. There is no one size fits all standard for public service and we cannot all be elected politicians.
So, that
out of the way, the main challenges facing Thunder Bay over the next few years
appear to have been categorized by the Mayor in his address last
week: taxation, crime, the economy and infrastructure. I would broaden the “crime” category to general
“social fabric” given the interaction between crime, inequality and poverty but
fair enough. These are the categories
most in need of attention in Thunder Bay.
Taxation of course is related to spending given that the municipal tax
levy is directly linked to the amount of spending. And, of course there are always issues that
will rear their head as a result from decisions made elsewhere – such as the
decision to legalize cannabis.
So the
issues on tap for the
first meeting tonight are whether to close Dease Pool or spend millions of
dollars in repairs (apparently $2.8 million more), changes in parking
regulations, a recycling contract
extension ($2.6 million more) and a report on the performance of the new Python 5000 pothole repair machine. Aside from the parking regulations, these issues
all ultimately may involve spending more money for one reason or another. Given that taxation rates are ultimately
linked to spending, tonight will provide a pretty good indication of what we
can expect from City Council with respect to tax rates in next year’s budget
process and the direction for the next four years.
