Sep 24, 2021
The nine members of city council each have one vote, but power on city council is not evenly distributed. For almost a decade (eight years) Mayor Clugston and his two closest allies have controlled the majority of powerful city committees. Few people notice what an incredible concentration of power this represents.
Traditionally, the mayor sets committee assignments. Mayors also tend to appoint their allies to important positions. This is understandable, but this type of power politics has its downsides. Mayor Clugston is not the first to use power in this way (Mayor Norm Boucher used it similarly), but he’s a useful example to illustrate my point. Controlling committee assignments is an important power for a mayor to have. The Mayor needs to be able to control what can be an unruly group of eight councillors. But I do think this power can be used to better effect.
Mayor Clugston has set committee assignments at the start of each term then leaves them unchanged. During both his terms he has relied heavily on Cllr. Friesen and Dumanowski. Both are devoted, experienced, capable councillors.
Committee chairs are powerful positions. Committee chairs control meeting agendas. For example, as a member of the Public Services Committee if I want to add an agenda item I have to go through the Chair. Chairs can call or cancel meetings.
The four most powerful city committees.
3/4 of the major city committees are chaired by Friesen and Dumanowski
Cllr. Friesen: Chair of Public Services—2013-2021
Cllr. Dumanowski: Chair of Corporate Services and Chair of Development & Infrastructure—2013-2021
Cllr. Friesen and Dumanowski form 2/2 council representatives on the police commission (2013-2021)—the single largest budget line item for the city.
Cllr. Friesen and Dumanowski form 2/3 council members of the Administrative and Legislative Review Committee. This obscure committee controls bureaucratic processes. Admin and Leg recommends appointments to community advisory boards, the library board, the police commission, Municipal Planning Commission, and the Subdivision and Appeal Board.
The police commission has a 6-year limit for all commission members. In 2019 Cllr. Friesen and Dumanowski reached the maximum 6 years. Other commission members served their six years and stepped off the commission. But when their turn came—rather than replacing them with two new councillors—Mayor Clugston instead brought forward an amendment to the Police Commission bylaw extending the limit to 10 years (Cllr. Hirsch and myself voted against this amendment. Cllr. Turnbull was away). This extension allowed Cllr. Friesen and Cllr. Dumanowski to remain on the commission and hire the new police chief last year.
Getting up to speed on council
Early on I was told that councillors need a full term just to understand the job. Usually councillors weren’t comfortable until their second term. Part of the reason is that most councillors work full time. Thus they only have time to attend their assigned committees. It may take two terms (or longer) until they’re able to get to sit on different committees to get a holistic view of City Hall. Eventually all issues make their way to the full council, but our joint time is short. Most in depth discussions occur at the committee level.
There is a simpler reason why it takes councillors a while to get up to speed—the mayor. Since councillors are dependent on the mayor for committee assignments if you’re out of favour a councillor might never get particular committee assignments. In a real way the mayor controls the perspective council has.
I quit my job to do this full-time for a practical reason. It was the only way to circumvent the mayor’s committee assignment power. This way I could set for myself how quickly I could learn how City Hall operated. For the last four years I have attended every committee meeting I could, not just the ones I was assigned to. I attended purely as an observer, but learned so much from the in depth discussions at the committee level. (I have had an incredible education this past four years.)
The benefits of rotating assignments
Instead I suggest committee assignments are rotated between councillors. This strengthens city council by giving all councillors the opportunity to learn about the entirety of City Hall. Rotating assignments would strengthen decision making because all councillors could more quickly reach a comprehensive understanding of City Hall. It would also help develop better mayoral candidates, as those with broad council experience are in the best position to step in as new mayors.
Leaders are created, not born. We can intentionally develop good candidates. Succession planning requires opportunities for new people to develop skills.
Politicians have little incentive to undertake succession planning. After all elections are competitive races and we’d be strengthening candidates that might ultimately defeat us at the polls. But politics is also a relay race. Eventually, those of us in power will hand off to the next leader. The community at large has lots of incentive to make sure that this hand off is smooth—that the next group can hit the ground running.