Wolfville and the new “Fiscal Sustainability Task Force”
Despite the fact that I would have been able to show certain qualifications (University degree; Employment with international companies in different positions incl. management; CEO positions; Co-owner and executive director in a software company with on average 40 programmers and specialists; Self-employed consultant with jobs in different parts of this world (i.e. U.K., Finland, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Germany etc.), I am almost certain that at least some people in the Town’s administration will be pleased with my negative decision.
When I learned that evening that the Mayor and all the Councillors plus four experienced volunteers would become members of this Task Force, I was able to visualize a nice “debating and chatting club” with eleven participants and different political interests but no hard working and manageable team to come up with practical and suitable recommendations for Wolfville’s future. And what could be the significance and the role of the four volunteers, representing the Wolfville public interest in this kind of grouping?
Personally, I regard the statement shown during the power-point presentation, that the Task Force has to provide the Council with recommendations for a final decision, as an redundant idiocy due to the fact that the Councillors will sit in on the Task Force meetings as well and will have voted on these recommendations beforehand anyhow already.
In the past some Wolfville residents saw a similar problem with the formation of the Planning Advisory Committee and its members’ composition. Obviously nothing has been learned from that experience.
In my published article “Impressions during the last Planning Advisory Committee Meeting April 08, 2008” I wrote:
- “As I understand it, the members of the Planning Advisory Committee will finally provide the Council of the Town with an amended MPS draft for the decision process. I have a major problem to see several Councilmen sitting in and acting as members of the Planning Advisory Committee as well. Personally, I don’t trust people, who pretend to be able to change their hats and may be their opinions depending on what meeting and/or decision making process they are on. This is not my understanding of a fair role-play and public participation.”
One point can be made in favour of all present Councillors. They obviously realized that this particular Task Force might become the most important one in the future and they all would like to be on it, fearing otherwise for lack of influence and power.
But if this is a fact, why don’t they then call it a regular “Committee of Council Meeting” with the very particular subject “Fiscal Sustainability” supported from time to time by outside specialists on demand.
I was missing a clear understanding of the scope and the goals and/or limitations of this Task Force. I am almost certain that no Councillor has a clear understanding either.
For what were the Councillors then actually voting when they made this Task Force become a reality?
During the discussions Councillor Irving tried with very positive intentions to limit the numbers of fellow-Councillors on this Task Force. Unexpectedly, he had to face quite some opposition.
Transparency was one of the key words used over and over again by most of the candidates in the recent election campaign.
Several Wolfville residents had distrusted the Town’s administration in how their tax money was spent and had asked directly and indirectly for some control.
They demanded something like a “Financial Committee” as a kind of control instance to check on how their money was spent and with what priorities covering absolute necessities and ultimately controlled by Council. In my personal wishes I had even gone that far to ask - regarding the credit cards provided by the Town - that past credit card statements of Brideau and Stead would become checked under the premise that all shown expenses were actually related to Town business and approved by Council beforehand.
And in addition I had wished to see a motion carried that at least every two years the auditing company had to be changed and that the rules of the actual auditing process and its focus would be made public. If the relevant auditing process just checks “what went in and what was paid out”, I shall regard such an auditing process as entirely insufficient and beside the point of transparency.
What has happened during this Council meeting? There was a motion carried for a Fiscal Sustainability Task Force which seems to be an entire distortion of what at least some residents wanted to see for a change. Nobody seems to have a clear understanding of what this Task Force will cover and for sure, it is not set up to cover any function of a controlling instance and/or may make financial issues more transparent to the public.
Does this mean that Wolfville residents are back to “same old, same old”?
Lutz E. Becker / December 17, 2008
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