Once upon a time I, along with a group of other citizens and members of Council, thought long and hard about how our city should be governed.  We made a whole whack of recommendations, and the Council has actually been pretty diligent at implementing many of them, albeit more slowly than some of us would have liked.

The Task Force was really overshadowed by the issue of Board of Control - should it stay, or should it go?  We knew BoC would get the most media and public attention, but it actually made up a very small part of our deliberations.  We were more concerned with imagining a government that was more accessible and easy to understand for the citizens of London.  We did our best to squeeze and pull our mandate to insert as many ‘citizen engagement’ recommendations into the final report as possible because many of use felt the most important shortcoming in London’s governance was a lack of meaningful engagement with the public on the issues of the day.  It has been over a year and a half since the Task Force reported - now that I’m on the blogging train I’ll dedicate a future post to my reflections on the Task Force’s work - but I’d like to focus on two recommendations that are on the front burner as we speak.

The first is Council Chambers.  At first glance, I can understand why many people think sinking $1.5 million into the tired, old chamber is a waste.  Leading the charge in this line of thought is the red herring argument that “City Hall is going to move somewhere else sometime in the future, maybe, possibly, we’re not sure.”  But the Task Force spent a great deal of time critiquing the sorry state of Council Chambers and Committee Rooms, and how their design actually disengages the public through poor interior design (Councillor’s backs are to the public) and poor technology (crummy acoustics, no way for the public to follow along with the agenda, poor wiring and lighting that makes Roger’s broadcasts look like Grade 3 productions, no way to track how Councillors vote, poor wireless connections for journalists, bloggers, tweeters, etc.)  I think spending some money to make Council Chambers a place that the public can attend (both in person, on television and online) and hear debate is the least we can do as a city.  If we can’t fix this issue, it’ll be an uphill battle to make other, more progressive steps towards enhanced engagement with the public.  

The second is Council compensation.  We recommended a separate Task Force be established to make a recommendation on compensation for members of Council.  We weren’t ducking our mandate - we just felt it wasn’t a good idea to have our Task Force, which was made up of four current members of Council (and former candidates and potential future candidates) to make a recommendation on compensation because so many around the Task Force table had a direct interest in the outcome.  The idea was to establish a panel of disinterested experts and citizens to make the recommendation, which I think was a good move.  This Task Force is now looking for members - if you’ve never been involved with a city committee or Task Force in the past, this would be a great opportunity to get involved.  Check it out here.

I’ll blog in more detail re: my thoughts on Council compensation once the Task Force gets up and rolling.

That’s all, have a great day.