Saying one thing, doing another

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2016 (3018 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It is one of the rules of the political jungle that the amount of influence you have in any one level of government is directly proportional to the quality of the relationships you have within that government.

That is to say, if you work and play well with others, you are more likely to get ahead. If you are in constant conflict with your colleagues, it can be a long and lonely existence.

Coun. Janice Lukes and Coun. Jeff Browaty are learning this painful lesson now. On Thursday, Mayor Brian Bowman removed the two from the city’s powerful executive policy committee just a day after they voted against his controversial development fee.

That’s not to say either councillor was being punished just for that one vote. Each had put themselves in harm’s way with the mayor.

For Browaty, transgressions included his participation in a poorly conceived radio attack-ad campaign engineered by Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt over plans to build more bicycle lanes, a project the mayor put his stamp on. It did not help later on when he stridently criticized efforts to reopen Portage and Main to pedestrian traffic, another issue close to the mayor’s heart.

Lukes raised eyebrows with critical comments about the process that brought council to the development-fee vote. She likened Bowman’s handling of the issue to some of ex-mayor Sam Katz’s biggest messes, including the huge over-budget police headquarters. She said the process was disorganized and unaccountable and many councillors were denied basic information about why the mayor was forging ahead with this exact plan, in this exact way.

In an interview, Lukes said she had accepted Bowman’s decision to remove her from EPC and that she had an obligation to speak her mind on mayoral initiatives she believed were weakly conceived and executed. “This is the byproduct of the strong-mayor culture around here,” she said. “The mayor has all the power and isn’t afraid to use it.”

On the one hand, it probably makes some sense that if you sit on the mayor’s “cabinet” committee, and then vote against one of his most prized initiatives, you are going to pay a political price. Except that not everyone who uttered a ‘nay’ for the growth fees got punished.

Coun. Scott Gillingham also voted against the growth fee, and his reward was being promoted to EPC. Coun. Cindy Gilroy, who voted for the fee, was the other councillor promoted to EPC.

When the smoke clears from this move, there is no getting around the fact that in removing two dissidents from EPC, Bowman is carrying on a tradition that goes back through decades of mayoral power brokering. A tradition he vigorously opposed and promised to change if he was elected mayor.

Bowman promised voters he would turn over responsibility for picking EPC to council. It was a huge concession in the power structure at city hall and would have been one of the most progressive measures ever introduced by a mayor. Except that he couldn’t do it.

“We are going to have a much more inclusive council than we’ve ever seen before,” Bowman said in the wake of his election.

Bowman’s plan ran into trouble when it was learned just a few weeks after the election that legislation requires the mayor to appoint councillors to sit the most powerful committee at city hall and chair the remaining standing committees. He could have allowed council to advise him on who to appoint, but he did not. He promised vaguely to ask the provincial government for legislative amendments to allow council more input into future EPCs. He didn’t get around to doing that.

The important point, however, is that during the 2014 election, Bowman expressed support for changing the way EPC is appointed and managed. As mayor, he has found it impossible to resist exploiting the same power his predecessor Katz wielded on numerous occasions.

Maybe Bowman has learned city hall doesn’t work if councillors have too much influence, or he can’t get things done if he’s surrounded by naysayers.

On the other hand, part of leading is finding common ground with critics. During the election, he promised to end the practice of using EPC as a parking lot for sycophants and lackeys. He said merit would trump allegiance to a particular politician.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the mayor exerting his influence over the composition of EPC. In municipal government, where the talent level on council tends to vary wildly, someone has to be in charge and push the city in the direction of progress.

However, it would be appreciated if the mayor would let everyone know now that he is rescinding his earlier pledge to allow council to form EPC. And then, operating under a more traditional power structure and culture, he can get back to moving his agenda forward with people who see the world the same way he does.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca