The city’s pending list of 167 outstanding to-do items could soon be whittled down to zero.
Barrie councillors will consider a motion next week to delete this list, which dates back to the 2010-14 term of council, and save the estimated $500,000 in city staff time it would cost to address these matters.
Deputy Mayor Robert Thomson has sponsored an item-for-discussion motion at the Dec. 7 general committee meeting.
“If things are from two councils ago or the previous council, but they’re not the priorities of this council, I don’t think staff resources should be wasted,” he said. “I think the priority should be given to the council of the day.”
Thomson, also the city's Ward 5 councillor, said that if new councillors heard something at the door while campaigning during the Oct. 24 city election and want it on the pending list, it would go behind what’s already there.
Thomson also recalls an item on the list about the local woodworking group by former Ward 1 councillor Bonnie Ainsworth and former mayor Jeff Lehman, for a feasibility study.
“This was a priority of a previous council that was then put on the laps of the former council (2018-22),” said the deputy mayor.
Thomson said there are disadvantages of clearing pending lists, such as federal and provincial bills in the pipeline but not passed, when an election writ is dropped.
“I know it sometimes backfires,” he said. “Where it’s in the third reading of the bill … we’ve seen how that doesn’t always work. There are some bills that are close to being passed, and they start from zero again.”
Thomson said the workload of city staff also has to be considered.
“Our staff have legislative requirements that they have to fulfill on a regular day, and I think people forget that,” he said. “There’s reporting they have to do over and above the directions of council. They have jobs outside of what we’re directing them to do.
“I think the turnaround time is so long on certain items because the resources (staff time) aren’t there.”
Thomson says the pending list has continued to grow significantly due to items being addressed, either in whole or in part, through other reporting mechanisms or broader reports such as the business planning process.
Additional factors are the number of items for discussion generated by members of council requiring reports, limited resources and competing workload priorities to address the items and significant staff changes, resulting in a loss of organizational knowledge related to a particular matter and the absence of systems designed to transfer knowledge when staff turnover occurs.
City clerk Wendy Cooke said Friday the pending list is an internal staff working document not publicly available, so it could not be provided to BarrieToday.
“So it’s a lot of feasibility studies … couldn’t we do this, stop signs and stuff,” Thomson said.
His motion is on the general committee meeting of Wednesday, Dec. 7, which is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
