2013 CAMA E-Brief Partner:

April 17, 2013

On April 1, 1993, it snowed.  Some April Fool`s Day joke – 30 centimetres of the white stuff with a strong wind.  Employees of the public works department laboured hard to keep winter`s last throes in check so the roads were passable and emergency vehicles and public transit could get through.  All in a day`s and evening`s work.  So what`s the fuss?
 
None, actually.  Until the next day, when the phone starts to ring in my office and the "sidewalk superintendents" call in to second-guess our response to the storm and offer advice on how to clean up the town.
 
One member of the public phoned to say we were wasting money – “Let the sun take care of it” he suggested.  Another complained that both sides of the street, including sidewalks, had not been cleared.  “Why weren`t you doing anything?” he asked.  Finally, another complained that the plows had cleared the street but blocked the driveway and now he had to actually shovel.  Invariably, conversations end one of two ways - "I pay your salary, you know," or "My taxes keep going up, but the service goes down!"
 
Such is life in the service of a municipality, I tell myself and anyone around the office who cares and has time to listen.  We look for reasons why our best attempts are always met with criticism.  We would love, just once, to tell the party on the other end of the phone that this is Canada and, yes, in April is can snow.  Somehow, we are responsible for both the storm and the resulting chaos that it might bring.  We solider on.
 
And then there are the jokes.  Like the one about the public works employee who phones his boss to let him know that his shovel has broken.  The boss replies, “So lean on the truck.”  A sense of humour and a thick skin are becoming requisite skills for this job.
 
We quietly go about our business hoping that the vast (and silent) majority of our citizens are pleased with what we do.  We prop ourselves up with small victories and eagerly compare notes with our counterparts in neighbouring towns to measure our success.  We drive through adjacent communities looking for potholes and snow banks to make us feel better.  We use statistics on everything – tax rates, percentage of debt, budget increases – to measure and justify our performance.  We eagerly attend conferences and conventions to hear war stories from other municipalities that we can relate to and laugh about.  We read Chatelaine magazine or L'àctualité to see if our community has made the Top Ten list.
 
I liken our performance to baseball – as long a we`re hitting .500 or better we are doing okay.  Unfortunately, we (and our "fans") expect us to hit 1.000, and home runs at that.  To push the baseball analogy one step further, I have often told our employees that in the big leagues, players are put in the Hall of Fame for hitting .250 over their entire career, so don`t despair.  And yet it is discouraging to work where the feedback is sporadic and usually negative.
 
We operate with public money, yet the public seems to know little of what we do.  Granted, there are times when the council chamber is empty on council nights, and that suits me just fine – no questions, no complaints, an early evening – but sometimes the public is a little too apathetic.
 
Last December, we adopted our 1993 budget of just over $45-million.  A lot of money for a community of 18,000-plus.  Not a soul other than the council members was in attendance.  We had spent two solid months to work to deliver a zero-growth budget and no one was there to recognize the accomplishment.
 
I felt sorry for the department heads and mangers who had worked hard to deliver this budget.  I felt sorry for the elected officials who had put in long and difficult hours and made tough decisions without the recognition of their fellow residents.

As a result of situations like this, a dedicated elected official can soon become disillusioned about the process and find easier and certainly more profitable ways to spend his or her free time.  This loss is the community’s.  Is it any wonder that there is a common complaint that public service, especially at the elected level, suffers from a lack of qualified participants?
 
Is the oft-maligned public sector really as bad as our “sidewalk supers” and the media would have us believe?  The answer is absolutely not.  Canadians can sleep well in the knowledge that our cities are well run and the whole process works.  The jokes and the criticisms aside, life in the public sector is rewarding in its perverse way.
 
Most of our towns, villages and cities are well run and are the envy of the world.  The social and financial problems of our sister cities around the globe have not reached epidemic proportions in Canada.  Yes, we are susceptible to catching such diseases, and that is but one challenge of the nineties for our communities.
 
Nevertheless, we can be assured that the vast majority of elected officials, professional managers and employees of our communities are dedicated to their success.

This message goes out to two groups:  to the public we never hear from (and who we are pretty sure are happy where they live) and to the many men and women who quietly go about ensuring that the streets are plowed, the water flows from the tap and senior citizens have a friend to turn to when in need.
 
Duncan E.Campbell is director-general of the Town of Mount Royal, Quebec (in 1993).
 

• Complimentary registration to ICMA’s 99th annual conference in Boston, MA this September;
• A travel stipend to help defray the costs of travel;
• To be eligible for the ICMA Conference Assistance Scholarships, applicants must meet the following criteria;
• Be a first-time ICMA Annual Conference attendee;
• Be a full-time local government employee (no part-time interns, please);
• Submit a completed application form;
• Demonstrate through an essay an avid interest in a career in local government management;
• Submit 2 recommendation forms signed by local government managers or administrators who are familiar with your work.

A new commemorative medal was created to mark the 2012 celebrations of the 60th anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s accession to the Throne as Queen of Canada. The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal is a tangible way for Canada to honour Her Majesty for her service to this country. At the same time, it serves to honour significant contributions and achievements by Canadians.  CAMA is pleased to recognize recipients from our member community. 

Over the next several months, we will be featuring our members that received this prestigious award.

 

 

Welcome to the following new members:

Deb Bowen, Regional Clerk/Director of Legislative Services, The Regional Municipality of Durham, ON
Robert Lapham, Chief Administrative Officer, Capital Regional District, BC
Ray Romanetz, Chief Administrative Officer, Town of Drumheller, AB

 

CAMA e-Brief is published every two weeks. Watch for the next issue on: The week of April 29th, 2013 To view the last CAMA e-Brief, visit: http://www.camacam.ca/en/ebrief.asp	Job Scene is distributed every week. The Next issue will appear on: Monday, April 22nd, 2013 To view the latest Jobs go to: http://www.camacam.ca/en/jobpostings.asp
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