Working on your day off

Do we expect our politicians to be working or playing on their time off?

Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster got quite a bit of negative publicity when he cc:'d the police on a request for information on a resident who obtained information on a trip he'd taken to explore a business opportunity for the town - on his own time.

We expect our mayor to be on the job pretty much all the time. I expect that and I'm sure Foster knew that going in - unless he's clearly on personal time.

But business done as mayor is a public matter and public concern. If I'm being represented I have a right to know what's going on.

There are two reasons why this story is resonates so much - history and expectations. The two mayors before Foster were - rightly or wrongly - perceived as having "bullied" some residents. Our new mayor ran on a platform of accountability and nobody who has met Adrian Foster would call him a bully.

So expectations were high that he would avoid the pitfalls of a curious public and even work with residents who are concerned about a single issue much more than may be healthy.

We need to give Foster some room - deals are often made behind closed doors for a reason - and realpolitic dictates that not everything has to be in the open all the time. I can wait until a deal is done or near done before knowing any details particularly if too much publicity might endanger the deal or lessen its impact.

So is Foster getting a free pass? Hardly. Clearly this should have been handled better and he really needs to communicate his intentions better. Many residents want to know what is going on and he should be more understanding.

He may be a new mayor but he's not new to politics like others on council and he needs to understand that residents expect him in particular to be open and accountable.

Happy New Year! Next blog I'll look at some New Year's resolutions Clarington council can make.

Protons & Electrons #002

Welcome to Protons & Electrons!                    PODCAST

I hope you will enjoy this second post to Protons & Electrons!

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"Incineration and more time"

There were a couple of major events at the Clarington council meeting held Jan. 17 in the council chambers.

For those of us that stuck it out until about 11:30pm it was quite a show.

Our elected representatives earlier went in camera for a long discussion about a motion concerning the incinerator - which of course means the public doesn't have access to exactly what the bone of contention was.

Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster and Ward 1 & 2 Regional Respresentative Mary Novak eventually voted against the motion proposed by Ward 1 Councillor Joe Neal. Both seem to feel the motion could result in some significant risk to Clarington concerning the incinerator and the host community agreement.

The motion passed - residents will have to wait a few more weeks to see what the result will be but among other things the motion gives Durham Region until Feb. 14 to weigh in on the matter.

Plus residents once again have 10 minutes to make their case in a delegation.

Clarington resident Jim Richards made a strong case during a delegation speech where he pointed out that the five minute rule only served to have more people sign up to speak because they felt not enough information was making it through to their elected representatives.

Council voted in favour of doubling the amount of time delegations have to speak - which brings time limits back to pre-former Clarington mayor Jim Abernethy levels. Ward 1 councillor Joe Neal brought forward the motion and I think he even used the same argument I did during the 2010 election - namely, if people make the effort to come down to the town hall they should be given a fair amount of time to talk.

We'll see in the coming months how much later council meetings go with the revival of the old time limit.

In my next blog post I will discuss issues arising out of the Jan. 31 Clarington council meeting.