THE SUMMER SITTING - DECISIONS MADE

Is the wonderful summer weather affecting the inhabitants of St. John’s city council? Let’s consider what they have done in the last couple of months.

First up, they appoint former city councillor, Kevin Breen, to the board of the St. John’s Port Authority. No public discussion and no press release from the city announcing the appointment.

Then we hear they have approved a $25,000 grant to St. John’s Clean & Beautiful - a grant that was lobbied for by former city councillor John Dinn. The public is made aware of this grant because Coun. Ron Ellsworth raises the issue in the public chamber. If he had not done so, we may still not know about this grant because it was approved at the council’s “private meeting”. What other public money is being spent without citizens’ knowledge?

Last week, city council voted to sell the home the Independent Artist Co-operative (IAC) currently leases from them. As usual, with this council, the “debate” did not engage the subject and was sidetracked by the Mayor’s habit of consulting his electronic messaging system.

What was most perturbing about this decision was the lack of respect shown to Coun. Shannie Duff. Duff had made a commitment to the IAC to arrange a meeting with them in an effort to resolve issues between both parties. All council had to do was to allow this meeting to take place and, after a report back to council from Duff, decisions and solutions should have been debated.

It is unfortunate that the majority of councillors chose to undermine a fellow councillor in this way. Will the public ever be able to trust a commitment from any councillor knowing that this is the way this council deals with such things?

It is also disappointing that only two of the six councillors who voted to sell the property spoke to the issue. Surely, citizens deserve an explanation from each of them for their vote.

Finally, we have St. John’s chief commissioner and city solicitor Ron Penney publicly defending his political boss’ Mayor Wells’ qualifications for the petroleum board.

Why Penney has chosen this time in the debate to come forward to defend Wells is rather peculiar. A court ruling has clearly stated that the government of Newfoundland & Labrador must accept the recommendation of an independent panel and accept Max Ruelokke’s appointment to the position of chairman and CEO.

Why did he not speak out before the ruling? Why did he speak out at all? Penney’s argument, “it’s important that people have the views of somebody who is knowledgeable about this issue,” is rather weak. The premier of this province has surely put Wells’ case forward. Perhaps Penney would be better explaining Breen’s appointment.

Let us hope that the above behaviour is not indicative of the direction this council wants to take. We should be witnessing full and open discussions on civic issues and explanations from councillors about their decisions.

And I have a suggestion for them - Ban all personal electronic devices from council meetings. Not only is it rude and disrespectful to be using them, the distraction they create does nothing to enhance the debate within the chamber.