Categories Engagement, Transparency

Evil and irresponsible actions

Posted on Author JC Harris

Last month, a resident made a 1public comment asking for some traffic calming and public safety interventions in their neighbourhood. During their three minutes they decided to make a light-hearted reference to the $400,000 the City Manager had asked to be pulled from our ARPA Stimulus account into the Ferry. Could not the City find a few thousand out of all that cash for planters/bollards, etc? (similar to those one can see at the Van Gasken property, the library, the  Marina, etc.)

  • Lighted bollards act as traffic diversions at Soundview Park
  • An example of City planters at City Hall. These can also be strategically placed to block vehicle access.

Being a good salesperson, they followed up their request with a thank you note to the Council, which sets off the following, not uncommon email chain…

This kind of interaction is not uncommon. The City Manager, Mayor and majority engage in coordinated bullying both on and off the dais. I figure it’s worth occasionally providing an example and raising some points, both in general about how these things go, as well as specific to what’s going on here.

First of all, I don’t write to my colleagues in a performative manner; I actually write to have a real conversation. It never occurs to me at the time to address each of those vague accusations as if they were real things because they’re never real things, and in my world, people don’t bother with things that are not real. However…

  1. The City Manager never replies to my e-mails. Occasionally he forwards them to the entire City Council–or on a few occasions to the entire City employee directory.
  2. In this case he passed off my e-mail to Mayor Mahoney. That might give you the notion that the Mayor has some ‘authority’ over the rest of the Council. That is not true.
  3. A Mayor is not the ‘leader’ of the City Council. In fact there is no leader of a City Council. The Mayor runs meetings, and they act as the spokesperson for ribbon cuttings and various events, but they have no leadership role over other CMs.
  4. My concern is that, if one tells a fib enough times (eventually) people start to believe it.

Specific to this resident’s request:

  • Mayor Mahoney seems to be implying that he, somehow in concert with the City and some particular group, are the ‘official’ representatives of that neighbourhood. See Point #4 above.
  • Every resident in every neighbourhood has the right to advocate for whatever they want. They have the right to create separate organisations to advocate on the same issue(s) or different issues. No resident (or residents) ‘speaks’ for a particular neighbourhood–or can limit the speech of any resident.
  • And any resident has the right to work with any member of the City Council they want, at any time, to help them achieve their goals.
  • Is it better to have one united voice on a particular issue? Sure; if they all agree. 🙂 Go convince people.
  • But with regard to any City spend, if the cost is under $50,000 the City Manager can act on his own. If it’s more (or less) the City Council can also direct him to take action. If you or your group wants something done? Ask the City. If the result is not satisfactory, bring it to the Council and see if there are four votes.

I only ever tell residents two things:

  • Organise.
  • Do everything in public.

And if that doesn’t work? Replace the government with one that does.

1Unlike almost every other post, I’m not including full links, I’m omitting most of the text from the resident and I’ve removed all the pronouns; not to ‘hide’ anything (the initial e-mail is innocuous), but because residents are not electeds and thus entitled to a bit more ‘modesty’. Skeptical readers can locate the meeting video at my Youtube Site or the City web site and/or submit a public records request for all the referenced e-mail(s).

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