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Using the team
?When she addressed the breakfast meeting of the Uxbridge Chamber of Commerce the morning after her election victory last week, Gerri Lynn O’Connor said one of her first priorities as mayor, even before she officially takes over in December, will be to get to know her council. Although she’s no doubt encountered many of them through her work in the community, she’s only worked with one of them in council chambers before - Ward 1Councillor Bev Northeast.
After so many years with Alex Grant as her right-hand man (actually her left-hand man, since that’s where the CAO sits in council meetings - the Clerk is on the mayor’s right), Ms. O’Connor will also have to adjust to a new chief of staff. But Ingrid Svelnis was her Parks and Rec. Director for several years, so it won’t be a major adjustment. And it’s not her staff that she’ll have to ride herd over at Council.
As she pointed out at the breakfast, almost as soon as the new council members take their oaths of office, they’ll be into heavy deliberations on the 2011 Township budget. That means they need to start working together right away. And at the inaugural meeting, the mayor also has to announce who’ll be chairing each of the committees (which are all Committees of the Whole, including all members of council). May we be so bold as to make some suggestions.
At the moment, there are four committees: Finance and Emergency Services; Parks and Recreation; Tourism and Economic Development; and Planning. There are six council members besides the mayor, leaving two out of the chairmanship loop. For now (the chairs can be switched around at mid-term, which is a good idea but only happened with one committee under Mayor Shepherd), we would suggest those two be Jack Ballinger, who will have his hands full learning the ropes at Regional Council, and Ward 4’s Jacob Mantle, who may have some political savvy but hasn’t attended a lot of council meetings before.
Finance requires a firm but calm hand in leading budget discussions; we think Ward 5 Councillor Gordon Highet has what it takes. Ward 3’s Pat Mikuse is a creative thinker, and we’d like to see her touch in Planning public meetings. Ward 1’s Bev Northeast, who is vitally interested in tourism and has the township’s largest industrial park in her ward (not to mention most of the trails and gravel pits), is a natural for Economic Development, and that leaves Parks and Rec. for Ward 2 rookie Pat Molloy, a portfolio with which he’ll be very comfortable.
A prickly problem for the incoming mayor will be to resolve the ill feeling between the other two female members of Council, which often cast a pall over meetings during the last couple of years. Mayor Shepherd was not a strong enough chair to deal with it effectively. Hopefully, Ms. O’Connor, who respects both women (and the feeling is obviously mutual), can bring them together. They are both hard-working, smart women dedicated to the same goals and interested in the same things. It would be a shame for the team to have two important cogs constantly grinding against one another.
