Topic provided by Guy Heywood
Monday, November 14, 2011
Civic engagement or Civil engagement?
Everyone knows how important civic engagement is to me - see the Report of my Civic Engagement Task from last term. But how important is civil engagement to our community? This evening, I received a voicemail message from a constituent. He wanted to know my position on a particular topic. He asked me to return his call, but he also told me not to bother if I disagreed with him. Dilemma: knowing that we probably did not agree, should I return the call anyway? Good manners won out, and I returned the call. As I began to tell him my position on the issue, he hung up on me. I have a thick skin from many years in local politics, so it did not trouble me too much. But it made me think of this question for the North Vancouver Politics forum: how important is civility in today's politics? Jack Loucks used to say, "It's okay to disagree, but not be disagreeable." How do we disagree on and debate difficult topics without disrespecting people and process?
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14 comments:
How unfortunate. Especially for this person who threw away a perfect opportunity to have some influence on your point of view. I haven't met too many councilors/mlas or mps who would simply shut out a point of view that was brought forward in a civil manner. I commend your returning the fellow's call even under the circumstances. To your point, if there was one requirement for civil engagement - its simply to listen and respect the point of view.
VS.
I am a tax payer that is not engaged. I rarely vote. There are many reasons why I am not engaged. One of the main reasons for my lack of participation is that I find local government to be woefully inefficient and deceitful. One way to get me involved would be to accept the proposal to appoint a municipal auditor.
Guy,
Is there any truth to the rumor that the IT department at the city has abandoned a document management system implemented by the previous management in favour of a totally different product? The replacement product is apparently at end of life, not certified for the operating system that was part of the PC upgrade, and the total cost of implementing an end of life document management system for the city may be nearing a million dollars?
I find local government endlessly fascinating - with so much room improvement. I agree with the suggestion of a Muni A-G because it is difficult to benchmark one local government against another or even do basic relative value for money spent comparisons between different ways of providing public services.
Ironically, I have heard Mayor Walton of the District speak against the idea when he would be my choice to be the first one (may appropriate punishment for being against such a good idea.
Without one we are at the mercy of the relatively primitive analyses of the CFIB and Can TaxPayers Fndtn. I think they make a good point when they say that local government cannot grow faster than the GDP or it means the citizens are getting poorer to subsidize a public sector that consumes wealth not creates it. There has to be a balance and it may very well be that we tipping into one of those public finance death spirals that Paul Martin had to save us from in the 1990s.
ps. I don't know much about the document system you speak of at the City. I will look into it but not sure it is consistent with this thread on the blog.
I believe also there needs to be a Muncipal Auditor and I hope under this system there will be complete transparency of where and how public money is being spent.
I believe the reason there is so much disrespect for politicians is because there is so little trust from the people.
We know the majority of Council in the City (Heywood excluded) are only representing union members and developers. The sad thing is they have all the money and the North Shore News (because of the money they can put in advertising)
I really hope you get in Guy
Walton supports the Muni AG and said as much last night at the ACM in Parkgate. Nixon was the only one to speak out against the MAG.
Anon 10:01:
I was there and Walton waffled around about. He did not support it. His talk was that it interfered with things other than finances.
Good point for Walton.
I was the last commenter. Walton actually said he supported a municipal auditor-general. However his comments were against.
Contrary to what Muri said at last night's meeting, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses are separate entities.
Mayors meeting last night, I thought that Walton was by far the best. Very impressed by all but one of the newcomers. Poly was the best of that bunch as far as I was concerned, although Nicols had some very good points. Margie Goodman came off as a very energetic person, ready to take on the world. Darryl came over just a little bit too smooth for me. If I was not familiar with him I would certainly give my vote in his direction, but I know he favours CUPE and developers.
I have already voted and Poly got my vote.
sorry should be spelt Polly
Agree that Ron Polly looked great, talked great too. Disagree that Darrell looked smooth, I thought he looked very uncomfortable and fidgety. As well he might.
There was resounding silence after a number of Darrell's responses, most notably his response to the question, "How have you demonstrated positive leadership to date in the discussion about the renewal of Harry Jerome?"
Instead of answering the question about his leadership, he pointed to the differences of opinion on Council. Surely, when there are different points of view on Council and in the Community, that is the time when positive, fair and repectful leadership is most needed. To date, on this challenging issue, it has been notably lacking.
I am pleased that HJ has become an issue with the City election. It's one where the candidates have articulted specific but differing points of view. It seems to me that part of getting engaged is feeling that you are voting for a position that you support on an issue that will affect you directly. We have with the HJ replace versus renovate a good example. It affects the voter in regards to both capital and operating costs, in regard to the safety and health of the buildings, in regards to the efficiency of the buildings, in regard to the potential community services that could be delivered. This has been a contest between those councillors (supported by staff) that want to look at ALL possible options before going to the public with choices versus those councillors that have promised certain groups special consideration and thereby reducing or eliminating certain possilbe configuration. For example - lawn bowling with its 80 or so members. The question was not whether they have a home or not in the New HJ - that had not been determined. Still these councillors gave them not only a pledge that they would in fact have a spot - but the very spot they are in....so any plan going forward must build around this space....bearing in mind that the lawn bowling club does not own this space. That was some really poor and near sighted positioning....unnecessarily fettering future possibilities that would benefit the whole City and the partnership with the District to keep a small group of lawn bowlers happy.
VS
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