Barrie city council’s last meeting before the summer break demonstrated two of its worst traits in a single motion.
Ward 6 Coun. Nigussie Nigussie asked that staff in the city’s finance department work with the Barrie Public Library board to develop a policy “that improves financial governance and oversight related to the allocation of grants and use of library reserves.”
He also asked that any library capital expenditures be approved by city council if they weren’t included in the library’s 2024 budget.
Without offering any evidence, he explained he had concerns about how the library board was spending its reserves on capital projects.
While it’s important that city council, elected by the residents of Barrie, oversee what goes on with taxpayers’ money, councillors must be careful not to stick their noses into every corner of the city’s business, what Coun. Ann-Marie Kungl called “arm’s-length overreach.”
If the volunteers who sit on the various boards and committees feel they are going to have their decisions second-guessed or their reputations impugned, it will be hard to convince people to fill the posts, except by "yes-men," and I hope that isn’t what the city wants.
Equally concerning about Nigussie’s motion is how it was introduced. Once again, a councillor used what is called a "motion without notice" at a council meeting.
Normally, any proposals have to follow a process, going from advisory committee to general committee to council. There are opportunities for public input, staff reports and sober second thought along the way.
None of that is possible with a motion without notice, which, as its name suggests, is sprung on council at a meeting without warning. If approved, it goes into effect at the same meeting it is introduced.
There is a long tradition at Barrie City Hall that such motions are rarely used and are reserved for time-sensitive, non-controversial matters.
There were four motions without notice at last Wednesday’s meeting — never a great thing — but only Nigussie’s clearly failed to meet that test. Ones covering an appointment to a city committee and a pilot project for students to use city transit in the next school year at least made it to the printed agenda and were time sensitive.
And a motion to give the Sandbox entrepreneur facility money to apply to become a ‘regional innovation centre’ was necessary because a provincial deadline is looming.
But there is no such urgency around the library board because, as blindsided library representatives were quick to point out the next day, there are no plans to spend unbudgeted capital funds in the next few months.
As a council-appointed member of the library board, Nigussie should have known that, which means he either didn’t care or wanted to cast groundless aspersions on his fellow library board members and library staff in a public meeting.
In either case, introducing such a motion without discussing his concerns with the library ahead of time shows poor judgment. About the only thing I can think to say in Nigussie’s defence is that he is a relatively new councillor and, based on his observations of Barrie council over the past 18 months, probably assumed that is the way business is done.
After all, a motion without notice was also used to introduce various homelessness measures, including the proposal to make it illegal to give food to the homeless on city property, something that brought Barrie bad publicity from coast to coast.
And, as we saw in the recent controversy over the multi-use sports field on the waterfront, pre-consultation before decisions are made is usually reserved for sports groups, not regular citizens or libraries.
One of council’s strategic priorities for this term is "accountability and transparency." Such actions as the library decision make a mockery of that commitment.
