Lack of mayor’s race put a downer on campaign coverage

New Tecumseth Free Press Online October 22, 2010
By Tony Veltri — Let me be the first to admit that I did a mostly poor job covering the 2010 municipal election campaign – my 7th since 1991 (1994, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2006).
A couple significant reasons why this happened in my own mind, began with the major let down that for a second consecutive local campaign, we did not have a credible race for mayor. And that made the task of trying to cover 35 candidates, spread over eight wards, all chirping, and rightfully so, for equal time and considerations, appear even more daunting.
It wasn’t completely void as I did tackle a couple of the bigger issues including the debt picture, and development implications on it, and the amalgamation history refresher. And did attempt to inject social media Facebook into the campaign, which met with mixed results as far as participation goes.
The nature of election coverage from a media standpoint puts the focus mostly on those running for the leadership post – mayor, premier, prime minister. That’s why people outside Toronto know that Rob Ford and George Smitherman are running for mayor of that city.
Here, incumbent Mike MacEachern will have the easist ride back to another four year term. That’s not to diminsh Tom Carter and Doug Graystone, but unfortunately neither is considered any more than a protest vote, and they did very little to alter that fate. It’s not a question of whether or not Mr. MacEachern earned another term, that’s for voters to decide.
In my view, residents are better served by having credible alternatives challenging incumbents, holding them to account for their time in office, and offering up their own ideas.
Mayor MacEachern himself knows of this first hand, because in 2003, he was one of two “credible alternatives” to then two-time incumbent Larry Keogh, along with Keith Bishop, and that meant people paid attention, and then voted for change.
And change we got. Lots of it positive – not as many in camera meetings – but lots of it by stealth too.
There’s still a sense of something brewing underneath the surface that will have great impact on New Tecumseth over the next four years, probably starting in 2011.
What’s going on with the pipeline negotiations with the province? What’s going to happen to our $7 million investment if we lose control to regional service boards? Whatever happened to each department making draft budget presentations to council like used to be routine at Saturday firehall sessions? What happened to the council “road trips” before road projects are picked? What happened to the monthly tabling of accounts council used to vote on? Why doesn’t the Press get all the material that council receives each week including in their “side pockets” that is otherwise public? Why is the public not permitted to speak at council meetings without unanimous approval? (Only delegations at committee).
Some of this stuff is nitpicking, but it’s the little things that accumulate most when you’re not paying attention to it piling up.
All the changes we’ve had as it relates to the process that is council, can be simply described this way: council meetings, following the week after committee, barely last 15 minutes. In fact, on July 12th, in the span of about 11 minutes it took to hold a council meeting, which then was the last one until Aug. 23 – “the Town went deeper into long term debt, and councillors approved development plans totalling more than 2,800 new homes when built-out in Alliston.”
Why even bother having council and committee as separate functions in the approval process if it’s only a rare item that ever gets reversed? How much money is it costing to assemble the entire senior staff, councillors, etc for a few minutes of “rubber stamping” decisions?
For 2010, councillors set their meeting calendar a year in advance that included five weeks off in the summer, and other than a quickie meeting on Oct. 4, there hasn’t been a council meeting since August 30, and excluding the inaugural, which is ceremonial, the next one scheduled is under the new crew in December. So obviously, we’re able to function as a town when they don’t meet, so maybe we don’t need a council. Or maybe I’m just happy this campaign is over with, and early. At least we didn’t have any acclamations this time.
On Monday exercise your right and vote.