Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
Councillors don't stay in touch with their constituents. All but the most high-profile issues are handled by staffers.
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If I may, that depends on who you elect. Once a week, I have "pop-up" office hours in the ward, which are virtually always packed with people coming by for three hours to chat big and small picture stuff. I read and reply to my own email. I spend hours each weekend writing a newsletter that is substantive and informative about any issue moving forward through the system.
Past two weeks, I've been trying to take "holidays", with no more than a couple of hours in a row to myself. City and my staff have been looking for decisions on small construction projects, noise exemptions, transit routes, and a couple of planning files; not to mention the snake and Magee House! I've been talking to a resident and by-law about the condo signs that are popping up all over. I've been working with residents and the architect on a controversial CoA project. I'm working through neighbour issues on a new supportive housing project that opened recently. This is all just a dull roar, and nothing like what I've got my fingers in when I'm actually on the job and not on vacation.
A few nights ago, I was looking at the sidewalk reconfiguration at Parkdale/Wellington where I'd had several onsite meetings with the developer and City to make sure we could keep that open when the original plan was to close it. There was a barrel in the way of the new route, which I moved. People saw me, and it became an impromptu pop-up, and I walked away with several to-dos.
Your councillor isn't sitting around eating bon-bons and sipping champagne. They're not an MP or MPP without a lot of connection to what we call case work. It's an on-the-ground job.
Yes, if you're looking for a new stop sign somewhere, or suggesting a new advance green, the councillor's staff will probably do the work of getting an answer from the City about why that can or can't be done. If you're calling your councillor with something you should be calling 3-1-1 about, yeah, the councillor's staff will probably deal with that - fixing a pothole, replacing a green bin, etc. But if your councillor's advocacy matters, and there's a real chance that their involvement will be key to the outcome, I don't know many councillors around the table who don't jump in.
City staff aren't accountable to individual councillors, but they do exercise a lot of deference. Since I got elected I've been very impressed at their responsiveness to every question under the sun (the City is a very complex place) and ability to brief so that councillors can provide guidance. When that guidance is in line with policy or staff's delegated authority, they defer, and it's a ton of these little decisions the councillor has to make each week that never see the light of day of a headline.
The story I'm coming out of this term with is a sidewalk that was supposed to be closed. Separate from the current re-configuration, the developer was going to be installing a hydro vault at Parkdale/Wellington in prep for the new development. They were going to close the sidewalk for three weeks or so. When I saw that (remember that I read my own email), I didn't see that that was acceptable given the distance between lights through that stretch (next one is Rosemount/Carruthers). I kept saying there has to be a better way, getting told it was the only choice, then finally asked staff and the developer to meet me there. Onsite, they described the challenges and regulations. I noted that the developer's property in the parking lot was empty, and asked why they couldn't remove a small portion of decorative fence, build a couple of asphalt ramps, and fence off a pedestrian detour. And that was exactly what they did. At minimal cost, there was a very convenient and safe by-pass to the construction.
Your councillor can't always achieve the outcome you want. They don't have authority over most things - just moral suasion. Only Council can direct City staff, not councillors. But, I would suggest most councillors around the table get that this is a customer service job, and that they have to get some mud on their boots.
Suggesting that councillors' staff members deal with most issues does a disservice to the work that doesn't show up in the media. City Hall isn't the West Wing. Anyone running for office had better be prepared to hit the ground running on more small, grunt work issues than they probably even knew a councillor has to deal with every day. Councillors' staff members keep the ball rolling, and I couldn't do it without them, but the buck stops here.
Kitchissippi is literally being torn up and re-built day by day. Even if the councillor's office budget was significantly increased to hire more staff, there's no way I could be hands-on to many more files. There's only so many hours in the day. Reducing the number of councillors would simply mean that on issues like a sidewalk closure, the chance of getting the councillor's attention would be dramatically reduced, and I believe that that would be a negative outcome for everyone's quality of life.