In 2022 I ran on three key values: Vision, Communication, and Collaboration. Each of those values had three key goals. I hope to return to council for the 2026-2030 term, so I thought it worthwhile to evaluate how well I did in achieving those goals.
Those values and goals have been on the front page of my website all term. Here they are, verbatim, whether they’ve been achieved, and what role I had in those achievements.
Communication
Having a clearly identified staff member responsible for providing information, directing inquiries, and receiving complaints; and encouraging all councillors, staff, and the public to refer to official channels of communication
This point was prompted by a pattern of municipal communication that I had long noticed:
- A resident complains about something municipal-related on Facebook
- Others pile on, adding to the complaint
- Someone suggests checking with the municipality
- A well-meaning councillor or engaged resident provides the answer, which had been available on the municipal website the entire time
- People continue to claim that they have no idea how to contact the municipality or know what’s going on in the community, and the pattern repeats
We’ve all seen this, and many of us have been part of it. I’ve been on either side of it myself, including the complaint side. On the answers side, I have been that engaged resident, and that well-meaning councillor. It’s really important to have clear communication and good information in our community, and when there’s an easy answer it seems simplest to just provide it. But this sometimes leads to situations in which residents feel that tagging the mayor in any given social media post counts as due diligence or formal notice of concern, completely ignoring the role of municipal staff and the actual role of the mayor and members of council. I started trying to change this by responding to such inquiries with links to the municipal website, hoping that it would create a habit of checking the website for more information. Eventually, for my own sake, I gave up Facebook entirely. (I highly recommend it. There are few things as bad for human well-being as Facebook.)
To be clear, communicating with residents and helping them navigate municipal services is a core part of the role of members of council. But I promise you, the mayor has better things to do than combing Facebook for complaints.
In this term of council I have advocated several times for dedicated communications staff, and our Economic Development department has made incredible strides in this regard. We’ve hired Morgan Scott, who does an excellent job keeping the information flowing, including:
- Writing a monthly municipal newsletter that includes information about public events, opportunities to participate and be heard, updates on major projects and holiday office closures, and more. I often find things in the newsletter that I didn’t know about, and it’s my go-to for making sure I’m on top of things
- Wrote the script for our new Brand Reveal video (not gonna lie, it made me tear up)
- Organizing and writing press releases and communiqués
- Organizing and engaging with the public at public events
I’m sure she does much more than that, and she’s part of an incredible team who have developed a reputation for being everywhere in our little community. I don’t dare take credit for any of their work, but I’m glad that my perception that we needed dedicated communications staff and improved channels of communication was accurate, and that I was pushing the puck to where staff were already going.
I want to stress to you all that our municipal website (which is getting a refresh this year too!) is an excellent source of information about all sorts of things. Please be sure to check there if you have any questions. If you post to social media with a question, I can almost guarantee that whoever answers you just checked there themselves for the information. And if you are using our municipal communications channels, including the website, the newsletters, and our social channels, please spread the word so that more people know where to go for official, up-to-date information!
Printing official notices in plain language in addition to the provincially mandated official communications, so everyone can read and understand public notices
This is one that I advocated for early on, and staff were quick to acknowledge and pledge to use plain language. The challenge is, staff don’t always think in plain language, much less write in it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing most of the time.
Every profession and field has its own jargon and language standards. Sometimes its own languages: in my training as a theologian I learned to read biblical Hebrew and Koine Greek, very important for interpretation of ancient texts and of no value in any other context (except maybe as a party trick). By the same token, our Clerks are adept at reading and interpreting legislation, our Planners are adept at reading and interpreting the steady stream of new planning regulations from the province, and our Public Works leaders are fluent in engineering reports and schematics. And while they all strive to explain all relevant information to laypersons like us councillors, I know that I’ve picked up enough of their technical terminology to not always need it in the plainest possible language…which means that I don’t always notice if a report is not intelligible to the average resident either.
So this is something that we actively strive to do, but ultimately the onus is on me as a councillor to either a) notice that a report is overly technical and ask staff to explain it more thoroughly; or b) to be able to explain it myself. In practical terms, most people don’t read most reports anyway–that’s why they have councillors, so that we can do it on their behalf–so I haven’t continued to ask staff to simplify their language all the time on the off chance that someone out there is seeking to read it and not understanding it. But it does mean that I need to continue to be actively engaging with residents to ensure that anyone who wants to follow an issue can do so.
That’s the purpose of this blog. While I haven’t put out a post every single week for the entire term, I have more often than not, and I sincerely hope that they’ve been helpful! I’ll endeavour to keep it up. Apologies to my faithful readers if I’ve covered the same issue more than once, as I try to address the most current issues as they come up (and some of them come up every year). If you have questions about any municipal issues, terminology, or technical language, please let me know so I can address it here!
Striving to ensure that public meetings happen at times and in formats that make them accessible to people with day jobs, kids, and disabilities
This is an issue that I’ve kept on our radar this term, and while I’m on the whole very proud of the way that Brighton strives to ensure that our meetings are accessible to all, it’s a mixed bag.
First, the excellent: Brighton’s council and planning meetings happen in the evening, and have for as long as I’ve lived here. That seems like a basic standard, to me, but you’d be surprised to find how many municipalities have meetings mid-morning on a weekday. By having our meetings at 6:30pm on predictable dates, we ensure that as many people as possible can attend. I love that.
While ideally we would have all public meetings happen in the evening, that would mean that we would have meetings every evening of the week, which would mean that our staff would never be home for dinner. That’s not fair, and also not actually necessary.
Every committee of council determines their own meeting times, and so finds a time that is convenient (or at least possible) for their members. While that doesn’t always mean a time that’s accessible to the public at large, public attendance of committee meetings almost never happens. I can think of one committee meeting all term that was attended by a member of the public. While some might say that we need to ensure that all public decisions are publicly accountable, it’s important to note that if a committee makes a decision on something, they’re really just making a recommendation to council; council will then determine, at a regularly scheduled council meeting, whether or not to follow that recommendation. SO, while not all committee meetings are at a time when virtually anyone could attend, all decisions are made at a time and place where anyone could. Further, all of our council meetings are live-streamed, and their recordings are available on YouTube.
We also have special meetings specifically for public engagement, such as when formulating our Strategic Plan, Transportation Master Plan, Secondary Plan, etc. These sessions are usually held on multiple days, including weekends, to ensure that as many people can participate as possible.
On the whole, I am convinced that anyone who wants to participate in our meetings is able to do so, and that our communications more broadly have improved dramatically during this term of council. I’m so grateful for our communications staff and clerks for their steady stream of good information, and glad to be part of a team that doesn’t mind when I suggest ways we might improve.