Just doing my regular Saturday morning scan of the upcoming Council agenda, and was very pleased to see a motion requesting that all local agencies, boards, and commissions that have councillors sitting on them post agendas, minutes, and meeting notices using the same standards as City Council - approving the motion would direct the city to politely request this action because it can’t ‘require’ agencies, boards and commissions to do so.

This is totally a political/symbolic move by Ms. Barber and Ms. Eagle to squeeze more mileage out of the Western Fair Board decision regarding ticket prices, but politics aside I find it very hard to disagree with their sentiment. (You may recall reports of inconsistent recollections of how certain councillors voted on the matter - public minutes would certainly clear that issue up, but the Western Fair would not release the minutes to the public.)

Though the fair is not technically a city board or commission funded out of the city base budget, it does have councillors on the board who sit on by virtue of their elected office. The Board of Governors at the University of Western Ontario is another example, as is the Fanshawe College Board - according to my old Governance Task Force materials, there are 31 such bodies that Councillors sit on.

As such, I completely agree that citizens should be able to evaluate the performance of their elected officials sitting on those boards. If they make a bone-headed decision, I’d like to know that when I cast my next ballot. 

Many of these agencies will argue that they’re separately incorporated entities that have a duty to their members, not to the public; thus, they are not required to disclose meeting information to the public using the same standards as the municipality. This may be technically correct, but what’s the issue with sharing more information with the public? Many decisions will still be made in-camera (land, labour, law, contract issues) but why not share everything else? Many of the agencies, boards, and commissions have Councillors on them because their mandates serve a clear public interest, they receive some kind of financial break from the city, or both - so it is completely fair to hold them to a higher standard than other separately incorporated entities.

So I say these entities should give the public as much information as they can without breaching their fiduciary responsibility related to sensitive issues (land, labour, law. etc.); 99.9 per cent of the people serving on these boards are doing an excellent job and have absolutely nothing to fear and 99.9 per cent of the decisions are reasonable and made in good faith. Also, letting the public attend portions of meetings that don’t need to be confidential reduces the mystery and public cynicism, and also engages customers and stakeholders during the decision making process rather than after the fact.  Good things, no? 

More transparency very rarely leads to worse decisions - quite the opposite. So I’m hoping a) this motion is unanimously supported by Council on Monday night, and b) agencies, boards and commissions take the advice.

Off to a wedding this afternoon - have a great weekend everybody.