LETTER: Tiny's proposed citizen code of conduct should be a 'two-way street'

MidlandToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). MidlandToday received the following letter regarding Tiny's proposed citizen code of conduct.

Tiny Township Council, led by Mayor Evans and staff, are in the process of reviewing the second draft of a bylaw for a 'Citizens Code of Conduct'.

This bylaw appears to be geared towards controlling public behaviour (including collective public exasperation) during its council meetings.

This 'Citizens Code of Conduct' will apply to those (citizens) in attendance and mute public input regardless of the gravity of the issue, or the potential direct financial impact to taxpayers for all Tiny council's decisions during council meetings unless done by deputation.

This proposed bylaw is clearly a measure designed to 'eliminate any and all' public reaction and to intimidate and silence any natural human response  of those attending council meetings, no matter what the issues are, what public statements and assertions are made by the mayor or councillors about issues or persons, especially if and when information or facts are omitted or misrepresented.

There will be no other mechanism or opportunity to immediately remonstrate or hold council accountable due to the threat of being publicly reprimanded, removed from chambers or even more severely punished. 

Obviously this 'bylaw' is being implemented in response to the year-long public fury and vocal resistance over council's  plans to construct a new township office building, but also in light of the public dissatisfaction and perturbation around several other publicly contentious (and emotionally charged) issues that council has been pursuing, such as unreasonable municipal tax increases, poor asset management, proposed Dynamic Beach Bylaw, land purchases and myriad other issues. This is in stark contrast to wishes of residents and the mandate council was given from taxpayers during the last election.

Tiny taxpayers simply want to be heard, listened to sincerely, respected and be able to hold council accountable for their policy decisions, actions and mistakes,  which may have significant financial consequences on taxpayers. It is a basic democratic right!

Having said this, there is indeed a way for the public to voice their concerns directly to Council, albeit 3 weeks later after the fact, or at the start of the meetings before Council discusses business. This is by way of brief verbal deputations in either a five minute open, or a ten minute pre-scheduled deputation. The latter requires the deputation be submitted in writing and in advance for 'their' pre-approval once they have reviewed the content.

This is where it gets very demonstrably unfair  and personal for me, as I had suspected, that allowing me to proceed with my formal  scheduled deputation request for the February 19 council meetings, could cause council to 'look financially irresponsible ' in face of the public opposition to their plans. I suspected this clearly was not something 'they' wanted to have the public hear in a deputation.

As background, I had prepared and submitted to the clerk a 'scheduled' 10-minute deputation request regarding an option to potentially save the taxpayers several millions of dollars by outlining a concept for adding a ‘campus-style’ building to supplement their growth needs at the existing Balm Beach Road site. However soon after my submission was received by the clerk, I was informed that my deputation was denied, due to a loosely interpreted and applied procedural rule (which could have been simply waived by Mayor Evans), and unfortunately I  would not be allowed to present, (nor respond) to questions.

After hearing of the denial decision, I immediately followed up with Mayor Evans by telephone to discuss this with him directly. The message I received was to the effect of 'I know where you stand on this matter' and went on to say that he would not support my request.  

Therefore, due to the urgency of the matter, I recruited another citizen to essentially read my deputation on my behalf, however it then necessitated the substance of the deputation to be presented in a shorter informal, five-minute 'open' deputation' using a condensed version of the original, and unfortunately the presenter was not qualified nor prepared  to reply to questions when asked by council members.

‘When my deputation material was brought up for discussion at the Committee of the Whole  led by Coun. Brunelle, Mayor Evans used considerable time at the microphone to try and discredit my deputation and it’s content; however more troubling and inappropriate was his misinformation in his comments about my personal qualifications and ‘documented proven experience’ constructing large scale ‘new builds’ while a manager at the County of Simcoe for more than two decades.

I wonder why he would he find it necessary to adopt this sort of behaviour unless it was intended to dissuade citizens opinions and indeed valid public input and voice. Perhaps the time is appropriate to honour update ‘Councils Code of Conduct’ in conjunction with any ‘Citizens Code of Conduct’, after all isn't it a two-way street.

The mayor and councillors must be held to the very highest standards and encourage open dialogue and constructive communications using 'its a two-way street' approach with the residents and taxpayer of Tiny rather than trying to stifle the 'public voices' by making unpopular closed-door decisions, embarrassment and intimidation of residents and introducing unnecessary procedural bylaws for controlling their personal mandates.

Drew Ironstone

Tiny Township