The following opinion was offered in the October 19 edition of the Guelph Mercury:
City councillors missed an opportunity this week for a wonderful debate. They could have kicked the tires on whether it is appropriate to give a big bag of public money to private property owners, for example.
They might have discussed the impact such a commitment would have on other worthwhile projects over the next decade or so.
They even might have realized they were giving away $1.3 million of our money before they did so.
But on Monday city council decided to give all that money to Skyline Incorporated without a word of discussion.
Incredibly, the reason nobody raised the issue around the council horseshoe was that none of the councillors realized it was before them. The costly gift was in an addendum to a portion of the council agenda that is rubber-stamped unless councillors want to pull something out and deal with it separately.
At the meeting few realized the money had been committed until Mayor Karen Farbridge mentioned to several people in the gallery, including Skyline chief operating officer Jason Ashdown, it had been done and there was no need for them to stay.
After the meeting some councillors lamented the fact they hadn’t discussed the issue before their $1.3 million oops.
“It would have been nice to have questions asked in public to hear answers in public,” Councillor Leanne Piper told my colleague Magda Konieczna.
“Had there been any dialogue or presentation, there would have been questions from myself,” concurred Coun. Ian Findlay. “There was some confusion, and it’s regrettable.”
Regrettable is one word for it, but a few others come to mind. Reckless, irresponsible, careless and stunning, for example.
That members of council wanted to ask questions about the funding proposal but did not do so — did not, for that matter, even recognize the opportunity to do so as it passed them by — can only mean they voted on the amended consent agenda without first bothering to look through it.
As shocking as this is, I find it nearly as troubling there has been not a peep of outrage from the community.
Findlay suggested he would answer questions from constituents on his blog, but when I checked yesterday there was not a single comment about council’s expensive gaffe despite a copy of Magda’s story being posted there.
We have not received a single letter to the editor on the issue. My e-mail inbox, which during the previous term of council would have been stuffed to overflowing at the slightest hint of something like this, has been empty but for routine press releases and day-to-day correspondence from my wife.
So does nobody care?
Some councillors have brushed aside the blunder by noting the funding proposal would have been approved anyway, so it’s not really like they accidentally gave away a big pile of cash.
True enough. This time.
But the even-keel outcome of the inadvertent decision was the result only of good fortune, not good planning. We may not be so lucky next time.
And the manner in which the funding was approved denies taxpayers (read: “donors”) the opportunity to hear council weigh the relative merits and perils of such a move and see how their councillors vote on it.
Denies us, in essence, the open, accountable government so many of the councillors pledged to deliver about this time last year.
I want to be clear that I am not opposed to the idea of injecting 1.3 million city dollars into redeveloping the Gummer and Victoria buildings. But it would have been nice to hear some discussion before the cheque was signed.