Who Really Runs City Hall?

Councillors are part-time elected representatives. Many must balance their public responsibilities with full-time employment, family and other commitments. They depend on staff for technical information, professional advice and recommendations.

That dependence makes transparency and procedural fairness essential. If councillors are given only one preferred solution, have limited opportunity to examine alternatives, or are unable to debate a motion without unsolicited intervention from senior staff, their ability to exercise independent judgment may be compromised.

1. The Power of the Staff Recommendation

Consider how a typical Council agenda is prepared. Councillors may receive hundreds of pages of reports, technical documents and appendices. At the beginning of a report, they are often presented with a concise summary of staff's preferred recommendation.

Summaries are useful. But when the recommendation receives the most prominent attention and alternatives are not examined with equal care, it can unintentionally establish a default position before councillors have fully considered the underlying evidence.

2. When Staff Enter the Debate

A more serious concern arises when staff intervene in the debate after a committee member has introduced a motion, particularly when the intervention appears to advocate against the motion rather than answer a question.

An example worth examining occurred at the Corporate Services Committee meeting on November 9, 2023, during a discussion of Asset Retirement Obligations (AROs).

The issue: Asset Retirement Obligations

The City's auditor, BDO Canada, briefed the Committee on accounting requirements concerning Asset Retirement Obligations. These requirements concern future costs associated with retiring certain assets, such as remediating contaminated land or removing asbestos from a building.

Staff proposed hiring a consultant to help identify potential obligations across City assets and hiring a part-time finance employee to assist with the work. Staff indicated that they lacked the necessary expertise or time to complete the work themselves.

During the discussion, several committee members raised the possibility of delaying the work until the following year, allowing more time to assess the requirements and how other municipalities were addressing them. A member then moved a motion to postpone the work.

3. What Does the Procedural Bylaw Say?

The City's Procedural Bylaw sets out how Council and committee meetings are to be conducted. Section 115 addresses questions while a motion is under consideration:

This provision is relevant to the question of how staff should participate once a motion is before a committee. In this instance, our concern is that senior staff appeared to argue against the motion without first being asked a question by a committee member.

So what prompted these senior managers to improperly argue against a motion? Could it be that without this new work they wouldn't have an argument for a new Part Time employee? Who Knows? What we do know is that the Corporate Services Department is overstaffed and has at least two managers more than other similar municipalities based on this Research Study. Given this, it seems incredulous that Corporate Services lacks the capacity to absorb this additional workload.

The issue is not whether staff should be permitted to explain technical requirements or answer questions. They clearly have an important role in providing information. The issue is whether unsolicited advocacy during debate is consistent with the rules and the intended separation between staff advice and elected decision-making.

Equally important is the role of the Chair and City Clerk. When procedural questions arise, members and the public should be able to see that the rules are being applied consistently. If a potential violation goes unchallenged, confidence in the fairness of the process can suffer.

The question residents should ask is simple: Who is responsible for ensuring that the rules are followed when those rules are being tested?

4. Who Benefits When No One Challenges the Process?

In the ARO discussion, staff argued that delaying the work would not change the underlying situation, and that the City should proceed. The motion to postpone was defeated after the discussion.

The resulting approach included additional staffing and consultant support. Whether that was the most appropriate decision is a separate question from whether the committee's debate was conducted according to the rules.

I also question whether the City had adequately assessed its internal capacity before proposing additional resources. The City's own service review and comparisons with other municipalities are relevant to that discussion.

There is also a question about the proposed consultant arrangement. The suggestion that another BDO office might provide the consulting work raises a reasonable question about independence and perceived conflicts of interest, given BDO's role as the City's auditor. That concern deserves a clear explanation and appropriate safeguards, rather than assumptions about wrongdoing.

None of these questions requires us to assume that staff acted with improper motives. But they do demonstrate why Council needs a process that allows members to test proposals, challenge assumptions and make decisions without feeling that the outcome has already been settled.

5. The Bigger Problem: Accountability

One meeting does not establish a routine practice. But it does raise important questions about the City's decision-making culture:

• Are councillors receiving balanced information about the options before them?
• Can committee members freely propose a different course of action without staff taking over the debate?
• Are Chairs consistently enforcing the Procedural Bylaw?
• Does the City Clerk intervene or provide procedural guidance when a potential breach arises?
• Are decisions genuinely being made by elected representatives, or are staff proposals becoming the default simply because they are difficult to challenge?

These are questions of governance, not personalities. Staff expertise is essential to a well-run city. But expertise does not confer the authority to make decisions reserved for elected officials, nor does it remove the obligation to follow the rules governing public meetings.

The Question for Candidates

The public depends on elected representatives to make decisions in the City's best interests. Staff are there to support those decisions with sound professional advice, not to determine the outcome through control of information or the conduct of debate. What will you do to resolve these issues?

If Council does not insist on balanced information, independent debate and consistent enforcement of its own rules, how can residents be confident that their elected representatives are truly in control?