Only doing half the job!

It is great to see Ben writing this. I have already bemoaned the fact that the current Cobourg council is a lame duck. Nobody trusts them and they lack credibility. Without public trust, no government can legitimately hold power. Politicians only hold power because it is granted by the public. There is no constituency left. Forget if a person supports the frink or not, the public consultation process was trashed and there is no transparency.

What is more worrisome is we are about to embark on a debate regarding local policing. The town council has no credibility to carry out a public debate on the decision because nobody can trust them to act in accordance to the public's wishes. Will they turn down another petition, spit on the citizens who come before them with opposing views? Noobody trusts them to build a consensus.

This is a critical situation. If any political leaders come within a mile of the town, they should be asked if they will intervene. Do we put up with this for the next three-and-a-half years?

The solution is simple. Can the current frink plans. Start over. But, first, build a new contract with the public. Hold a series of meetings over the fall and find out what can be done to make council more effective in representing people's wishes. Then, once a community-based protocol is developed, then back to the frink and policing.

Without a new system, nothing will work. Acting alone will not work either. There must be a community-building process and wounds must be healed.


Only doing half the job!:

Now that the Fiberals and the Harpocrits have adopted the abominable American practice of fixed election dates and imposing them on the Municipalities the cry for the other part of the equation is becoming stronger. I refer to the practice of recall or impeachment. This is an essential part of American democracy but somehow got left out when the idea of fixed terms was imported.

Both here in Cobourg, and more often in Toronto: where the Mayor has become rather unpopular very quickly, critics are bemoaning the lack of a recall procedure. This is valid, especially in Municipal politics. Four year terms are horrendous for local democracy as we see in Cobourg where four dead white men, five if you count the Mayor, are obstinately disregarding the appeals of the great unwashed - and not just on the FRINK issue but everything else. I did read that the Mayor was recently booed at a public function - that must have been very unsettling both for public decorum and the imperial ego of PD.  Incidentally when thee year terms were instituted in  the 80s I spoke against it. Local politics is the most responsive level of government and should be  electorally responsible as well. Two year terms should be the norm and any politician who says they need that long to learn the job should be sent to the slow learner class and dismissed.

In real terms a recall operation is very expensive and time consuming and usually fails to unseat the incumbent but McGuinty, or his soon to be successor, must add it to the Act that covers elections. After all it's only fair, but then what fair these days?

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