Pelham Town Hall was handed a golden opportunity. But of course they squandered it.
Following the resignation of Pelham’s Regional councillor, the Town had to find a replacement. Which council did, by appointing Ward 1 Councillor Wayne Olson to the job. Excellent so far. If they had just stopped right there, they would have nailed it.
But instead they had Olson resign from his position as a Town councillor so that he can serve as a Regional councillor. Terrible decision.
Olson should simply do both. It’s not that hard. Y’know how I know it’s not that hard? Because Pelham’s mayor already does it. So does the mayor of every other municipality in Niagara.
Having Regional councillors also serve on the municipal council should be the norm. There is absolutely zero need to have the Regional councillor be its own position, and I’ll give you three good reasons why.
First and foremost is electoral simplification. The municipal ballot is already needlessly long. Voters have to elect a mayor, and they probably have a decent idea of who the mayoral candidates are and what their platforms are about. But then they also have to vote for councillors, and I know from experience most voters do not know who their ward councillor is, or anything about them.
Then we’ve got a bunch of various school board trustee candidates gumming up the ballot—none of whom anybody knows from a hole in the wall.
And last but very much least, we’ve got Regional Council candidates. Again, nobody knows these people. Nobody knows who their Regional councillor is, nobody knows what they do, and nobody knows why they need a separate person just to represent them at Regional Council.
The second reason we shouldn’t have Regional councillors is the fact that we already have way, way, way too many councillors in Niagara. Despite there only being about 500,000 people in Niagara, we have a ridiculous 126 councillors. If you add together Toronto and Peel Region (Mississauga, Brampton, Caledon) there are only 77 councillors for a combined population of 4.2 million.
It’s clear to any sane person that Niagara’s bloated municipal governments are endlessly bogged down by the gaggle of councillors all prattling over one another. We need fewer councillors, and a good way to cut down on the bloat is to stop electing standalone Regional councillors, and instead just pick an existing municipal councillor to do double duty.
Which brings me to my third and final point: expense. Paying 126 councillors is a considerable chunk of change. If we cut that back, it’s an easy way to claw back some money for the taxpayers.
Which is why the proposal from a few years ago about double-duty Regional councillors was so silly. The idea from St. Catharines back then was to cut down councillors by having some of their city councillors perform double duty and also be Regional councillors (great idea) but to also take the salary of the Regional councillor and just give it to the double-duty city councillor (terrible idea) for a net result of zero dollars saved.
And I get it, you’re asking some city councillors to do more work than others, and they should be paid more for it; no argument there, but we’re not talking about doubling the workload here, so there’s no need to double their salary. At most, take half the salary of the Regional councillor, and give it to the double-duty municipal councillor, at least then for every two council positions we amalgamate, we’re eliminating one full salary.
“Oh, but James, council salaries aren’t that big anyway, why are you squabbling over such a small amount?”
I hate that argument. When you’re talking about tax dollars, there is no such thing as an amount so small it’s not worth the squabble. Like Ben Franklin said, “Watch the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves.”
James Culic is aware that pennies don’t exist anymore, but it’s still a good aphorism. Find out how to yell at him at the bottom of this page or do your civic duty and elect to write a letter to the editor by clicking here.
