It is the role of senior municipal staff to use their expertise to provide advice and recommendations on the basis of which council then makes decisions. But should staff provide completely objective, neutral policy advice or should they provide advice that is tempered with local political reality. Do councillors want “just the facts, please,” a comment associated with Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday on the old Dragnet weekly TV series? Or do they want advice that is realistic and practical having regard to the local community? What councillors want will, of course, vary from municipality to municipality and even from issue to issue. To illustrate, let me share two examples from the same municipality from my consulting work a couple decades back.
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I was prompted to return to this topic by some recent observations from Bob Heil on Linkedin. I believe that I first got to know Bob when he was a member of Heil, Kyle, and Koopmans. While this sounds like one of those singing groups from the 1950s or 60s, they were actually three experienced municipal practitioners providing workshops. Now retired, Bob is drawing upon close to 40 years of experience to set out 12 principles for effective municipal government.
And why are we addressing this quaint topic, I hear you cry. One catalyst was a recent article from the Brookings Institute which argued that we have been so focused on preparing students for the 21st century economy that we have failed to prepare them for 21st century democracy. We have mistakenly viewed the objective of education as preparation for college and careers. One result, the Brookings article pointed out, is that Americans struggle with disinformation, hold strongly negative views of each other, and believe conspiracy theories all too readily. A similar pattern is evident in Canada - but so far to a much lesser degree.
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AuthorC. Richard Tindal, Ph.D is a retired Professor of Government. He taught for 30 years at St. Lawrence College, Kingston and was an occasional Visiting Professor at Queen's University. He has also written and consulted extensively about government. Archives
October 2023
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